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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



332 tfje same ^titfjor. 



THE EVIDENCE OF SALVATION. 

l6mo. Cloth, 50 cents. 

" Not dogmatic or partisan, or assertive. It is calm, judicial, 
tender, and written in a reverent spirit. It may be heartily 
recommended for private devotional use, and as a wery helpful 
manual in Christian work." — Christian Mirror, 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS, 

NEW YORK AND BOSTON. 



PROPHECY 



OR 



SPEAKI NG FOR GOD 



y 



REV. EVERETT S. STACKPOLE, D.D 



AUTHOR OF "THE EVIDENCE OF SALVATION 



-.-^ssaajyj^. 



MAR 7 1896 




w 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14™ Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

BOSTON : loo Purchase Street 



K- 



^ 



!A1 
51 



Copyright, 1896, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 



C. J. PETERS & CO., typographers, 

boston. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface v 

I. Prophecy Defined T . . 3 

II. The Prophetic Call and Character ... 21 

III. The Prophetic Message 41 

IV. Prophetic Inspiration 65 

V. Predictive Prophecy ' 87 

VI. Messianic Prophecy 113 

VII. The Prophet as Moral Reformer . . . . 137 



PREFACE. 



The best philosophy is in accord with Paul 
that truth is spiritually discerned. It is re- 
freshing to read this from Professor Bowne:^ 
''Truth, as such, is not dependent on demon- 
stration, but exists eternally in its own right. 
Demonstration is only a makeshift for helping 
ignorance to insight. It is a stimulus to the 
mind of the learner to think in certain ways 
which shall lead him at last to see the truth 
proposed." The truth here expressed seems 
to be at the bottom of Plato's teaching, that 
to learn is nothing else than to remember. 
The mathematical demonstration only helps 
to the recognition of knowledge native to the 
soul. In vain are all proofs and evidences 
unless the learner is led thereby to indepen- 
dent vision. Intuitive theology is the only 

1 " Philosophy of Theism," p. 31. 
V 



VI PREFACE, 

kind that satisfies. Historical theology is val- 
uable only as it actually reveals God and 
truth. A mere record of what men once be- 
lieved and did is as likely to lead into error 
as into truth. 

God is the author of truth. It is the ex- 
pression of the divine nature. The soul that 
is possessed of God is possessed of truth. 
He cannot possess the whole of truth in con- 
scious recognition ; but the truth must pos- 
sess the whole of him, if he is to make any 
advance in recognition of it. Then it can 
progressively disclose itself. Some have to 
rub their eyes and rack their brains in order 
to see what to others is an open vision. 
Logic is needed only where intuitive power 
is lacking. A common illustration of this is 
the interrogation at the end of an argument 
or statement : '' Do you see t " If the listener 
does not see, words have been wasted. A 
still greater waste is the multiplication of 
words after the truth is seen. 

Many of the sayings of Christ are short, 
pithy utterances of self-evident truth. Be- 



PREFACE, Vll 

cause they were such, he demanded assent 
to them. He did not try to prove truth ; 
he simply stated it. Those who did not and 
would not assent, showed thereby their moral 
blindness and preference for lies. He that 
is of God heareth God's words. If any man 
will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine. 

In order to see, three conditions are ne- 
cessary : (i) something to be seen; (2) the 
power of vision ; (3) a willingness to look in 
the right direction. The first condition is 
allowed by common consent. We live in a 
world of realities. Things may not be what 
they at first seem, yet they are not utter 
delusions. There is truth, and it can be dis- 
covered. Power of vision for the beholding 
of objects and the discovery of truth is a 
common gift, to be developed and improved 
by degrees. It is not always trustworthy, yet 
is instinctively trusted. All that the senses 
bring into the mind has to be corrected by 
reflection. Sights and sounds must be in- 
terpreted by thought. If our senses report 



Vlll PREFACE. 

things that contradict the perceptions of others, 
it is to be feared that something is wrong. 
So the spiritual senses must be tested by 
the experience of the wise and good. The 
proper conditions of age and culture must 
be observed. But most surely whatever of 
truth has been intuitively perceived by others 
is discernible by all who meet the conditions, 
and with far greater ease after reading the 
descriptions of former beholders. 

The main obstacle to seeing what others 
have seen is an unwillingness to look the 
right way. The opponents of Galileo would 
not look through his telescope for fear that 
their theories of astronomy would be refuted 
by the vision. He who would perceive the 
truth must have the eye single, and must look 
where God points. In any given direction 
he must see all that others before him have 
seen ere he can discover anything beyond. 

The pure in heart see God, and the things 
of God. This power of spiritual intuition is 
to be trusted oftentimes rather than logical 
process. Let some of the dogmas of tradi- 



PREFACE, IX 

tional theology be tested by it. Good men, 
misled by supposed authority and by logic, 
have taught that God has unconditionally de- 
creed the eternal salvation of a few and the 
eternal damnation of the many. Can any 
pure soul, in moments of the greatest spirit- 
ual uplift, assent to that without hesitation } 
Does it not contradict the God within him .? 
Some have declared that the saved will take 
delight in witnessing the endless tortures of 
the lost. Was that a revelation given to 
spiritual intuition } No open-minded person, 
unbiassed by logic, traditions, and authority, 
can believe that. 

The truth must be seen. Give heed to 
the prophetic word tmtil the day dawn. If 
the day does not dawn, there is something 
wrong, either with the supposed word of 
prophecy, or with the eyesight of the gazer. 
Let every one see for himself before testify- 
ing to the reality of asserted truths. The 
truths revealed through ancient prophets are 
the same as those revealed now in the heav- 
ens, in history, in conscience, and in religious 



X PREFACE. 

experience. Spiritual insight is the prime con- 
dition of beholding them. If this book shall 
not succeed in opening the eyes of the blind, 
it is hoped at least that it will induce some 
who see dimly to look earnestly and patiently 
in the right direction. 

Lectures, of which this book is the out- 
growth, have been delivered before the School 
of Theology of Boston University, Bangor 
Theological Seminary, and Cobb Divinity 
School. This explains its directness of style. 

E. s. s. 

Auburn, Me., January^ 1896. 



I. 

PROPHECY DEFINED. 



What our land cries for is a man of the people to speak for Christ, 
a man who has grown up amid all the oppressions and grievances and 
hardships and temptations of the lowest class in our society, and who 
through and by means of all his experience has learned the value of 
Christ for himself and for his fellows ; a man who can stand free 
from all professionalism, from all traditions and creeds and conven- 
tions, who can say, " I am not a prophet, nay, nor the son of a 
prophet ; " who can take his stand simply on his manhood, and from 
that widest and firmest platform can proclaim to men the unsearchable 
riches of Jesus Christ. If ever any age needed a man like John the 
Baptist it is our own, — a man of absolute fearlessness, and, what 
is even better, of absolute independence ; a man who asks noth- 
ing from society, not even food, clothes, or shelter ; a man free to 
utter his convictions, and to summon his fellowmen to listen to con- 
science and to God; a man who is simply a voice, whose sole 
function in Hfe it is to speak for righteousness and prepare the way 
for the Messiah. 

Professor Marcus Dods. 



PROPHECY; 

Or, speaking FOR GOD, 



PROPHECY DEFINED. 

Religious convictions above all others seek 
an expression. Out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth must speak. The same divine 
Spirit that inbreathes the conviction also im- 
pels the utterance. The Spirit of God acting 
upon the spirit of man makes known certain 
moral and religious truths. They are called 
religious instincts or intuitions. They are 
revelations of God within us. Revelations 
of such sort are given to all moral crea- 
tures. The truths so revealed are univer- 
sal and self-evident, yet may be, and have 
been, obscured and hidden by neglect of truth 



4 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

and disobedience thereto. He who reflects 
most, communes with his own heart, and pray- 
erfully calls upon God for light, perceives 
most clearly these great fundamental truths 
of morality and religion. He finds God first 
within himself ; and this knowledge of God, 
gained more and more clearly by prayer and 
communion, enables him to see God outwardly 
revealed in the works of creation and in the 
ways of Providence, which are a revelation 
of his moral nature and government. His 
soul may become so filled with God, he may 
be so conscious of the divine indwelling, his 
thoughts may be so occupied with divine 
things, that he sees God everywhere and in 
all events. The heavens declare his glory. 
The earth is his footstool. The stars and 
planets are his marshalled hosts. He speaks 
in the thunder and in the wind. His eye 
looks out from behind the cloud in the light- 
ning flash. His mighty arm shakes terribly | 
the earth in the upheaval of a volcano. The 
tempest is the breath of his nostrils. He 
upheaves the foaming sea, and calms the tur- 



PROPHECY DEFIiYED. 5 

bulent winds. He waters the earth, and 
causes it to bring forth fruit. In fine, what 
the heathen nations have ascribed to thou- 
sands of gods, this *' God-intoxicated man" 
refers to the one true God everyw^here present 
and active. He is in the tiniest particle of 
matter and in the minutest event of the indi- 
vidual life, while the heaven of heavens cannot 
contain him. 

Still more clearly is God recognized in the 
events of individual and of national life. Here 
especially he is revealed as Judge. Conscience 
refers all acts to his decision ; and all events 
ordered or permitted are expressions of his 
moral approval or of retributive justice. The 
reception of any good whatever is evidence 
of God's favor, and calamity is his rebuke 
for sin. Anything unusual is a miracle of 
his grace or of his righteous indignation. 
The strong east wind,^ the overshadowing 
cloud, the stars in their courses,^ all the forces 
of nature, are at God's disposal for the defence 
of his people. Pestilence is his destroying 

1 Exod. xiv. 21. 2 Judges v. 20. 



SPEAKING FOR GOD. 



angel,^ sent to strike with death the wicked 
and rebellious. War is his national scourge ; 
and God himself, with drawn sword, leads on 
the armed hosts.^ The earthquake is the 
movement of his mighty arm, threatening 
destruction to the ungodly. The cloud of 
locusts^ are his avengers, ushering in the 
terrible day of the Lord. God sits in the 
heavens and orders all below. His kingdom 
ruleth over all. 

In all ages and in all lands there have been 
"priests of the most high God," like Mel- 
chisedec, who without any book revelation 
have found out God, though not to perfection; 
have felt his presence in their souls, and 
seen him in his varied manifestations. The 
habit of the Hebrew mind especially was to 
overlook all so-called secondary causes,^ and 

1 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16. 

2 Josh. V. 13-15. 
^ Joel ii. i-ii. 

* Professor James A. Craig, in the introduction to his ** Assyr- 
ian and Babylonian Religious Texts," says that, **Both Baby- 
lonians and Hebrews were strangers to the doctrine of secondary 
causes, — a doctrine introduced by the Greeks ; and both re- 



PROPHECY DEFINED, / 

to trace every event directly to Jehovah. 
His mighty and judicial presence was every- 
where felt. Truly in him they lived, and 
moved, and had their being. There were men, 
of course, who possessed this consciousness of 
God to a remarkable degree. Their thoughts 
concerning him were objectified so that they 
saw his glory and heard his voice. Psycho- 
logically, the manifestation was subjective, but 
to unreflecting common-sense it was objective. 
The spiritual Being was apparently materi- 
alized. It mattered not whether the mani- 
festation was by dream, or vision, or ecstatic 
trance, it was all real to the subject. It was 
the object ification of his inwrought thoughts, 
feelings, and convictions. What we call con- 
scientious convictions were a "Thus saith 
the Lord" unto him. Strong impressions 
were God's pressure upon his spirit. The 

garded the monitions of conscience, for which there is no word 
in early literature until the time of Zeno (cir. 320 B.C.), as the 
voice of deity; two facts which, it appears to me, it is cus- 
tomary to overlook in the study of the Old Testament, though 
they are two of the most important to bear in mind." — See 
i\iQ Independent oi Dec. 19, 1895. 



8 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

troubled conscience felt the hand of God 
laid heavy upon it.^ The impulse to rebuke 
sin and preach righteousness was as a burn- 
ing fire shut up in his bones.^ The call to 
prophesy or speak for God was heard like 
the roaring of a lion.^ A necessity was laid 
upon him, and he could not but speak the 
things which he had seen and heard. 
Sometimes the prophet felt himself to be so 
possessed and wrapped up in God that he 
seems to have lost consciousness of his own 
identity, and to speak in the first person with 
divine authority. Then exhortation becomes 
command. The '^word of the Lord" has 
come unto him in the shape of an intense 
conviction wrought in his soul. The things 
that other people only dimly surmise, or 
feebly hope, or cannot realize at all, he sees 
and hears and knows. All the powers of his 
soul are aroused to proclaim them. He be- 
comes a poet and an orator, made so by 
vivid realization and burning zeal. With 
Oriental imagination he paints his thoughts 

1 Ps. xxxii. 4. 2 jer. xx. 9. ^ Amos iii. 8. 



PROPHECY DEFINED. 9 

as outward realities. He gets his message 
not from any book, though his general prin- 
ciples of truth and righteousness may be 
contained in many books ; but truths as old 
as the hills have been specially revealed unto 
him, and are applied by him to the circum- 
stances in which he lives. In most cases 
nothing essentially new has been revealed ; 
but what he already knew has been made 
luminous and real, and by spiritual discern- 
ment he sees the plans and purposes of God. 
Such sight is foresight and insight and 
through sight (JDurchsicht). He sees through 
events to a logical and historical outcome. 

The original idea of prophecy needs to be 
more clearly defined. It has grown to be sy- 
nonymous with prediction, as though this were 
its principal element. The foretelling of fu- 
ture events is a subordinate and unessential 
part of the prophetic office. Many of the 
prophecies recorded in the Bible contain no 
prediction. There are, to be sure, prophecies 
that have the predictive element, but they 
are not so numerous as has been supposed. 



lO SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

Some portions of Scripture that are prophet- 
ical in form are historical in fact. A strained 
effort has been made by many exegetes to 
discover the New Testament in the Old ; to 
see in every prominent person a type, in 
every act a symbol, in every prophecy a pre- 
diction, concerning Christ and his kingdom. 
The cross has been seen by fanciful inter- 
preters in the tree of life, in the rod of 
Moses, and in his outstretched arms upheld 
by Aaron and Hur. The whole gospel has 
been drawn out of the saying concerning the 
"seed of the woman." The doctrine of the 
Trinity has been found in certain plural forms 
in the first chapter of Genesis, and in the 
Trisagion of Isaiah. The scarlet cord of 
Rahab has been twisted into the redeeming 
blood of Christ. Even Samson has served 
the purpose of Messianic prophecy. The 
warrior from Edom, with garments dyed in 
the blood of slain enemies, has been made 
a type of Christ pouring out his own blood 
for his enemies. The history of the whole 
world has been drawn out of the prophecies 



PROPHECY DEFINED, II 

of Ezekiel and Daniel, and they have been 
made to foretell things they never dreamed 
of. Immediate events discerned by the signs 
of the times have been projected into the far 
distance. Historical allusions in the New 
Testament, forced by rabbinical methods of 
interpretation into parallelism with events in 
the lives of Christ and the apostles, have fur- 
nished the basis of arguments drawn from 
fulfilment of prediction. 

A passage from Rev. F. W. Robertson 
further illustrates this false method of inter- 
pretation. He says that Scripture '^ is full 
of Christ, but not in the way that some sup- 
pose ; for there is nothing more miserable, 
as specimens of perverted ingenuity, than the 
attempts of certain commentators and preach- 
ers to find remote and recondite and in- 
tended allusions to Christ everywhere. For 
example, they chance to find in the construc- 
tion of the temple the fusion of two metals, 
and this they conceive is meant to show the 
union of Divinity with Humanity in Christ. 
If they read of coverings to the tabernacle, 



12 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

they find implied the doctrine of imputed 
righteousness. If it chance that one of the 
curtains of the tabernacle be red, they see 
in that a prophecy of . the blood of Christ. 
If they are told that the kingdom of heaven 
is a pearl of great price, they will see in it 
the allusion, — that, as a pearl is the pro- 
duction of animal suffering, so the kingdom 
of heaven is produced by the sufferings of 
the Redeemer. I mention this perverted mode 
of comment, because it is not merely harm- 
less, idle, and useless ; it is positively dan- 
gerous. This is to make the Holy Spirit 
speak riddles and conundrum.s, and the in- 
terpretation of Scripture but clever riddle- 
guessing." ^ 

All this has tended to belittle prophecy, and 
obscure its real import. We have, perhaps, 
been deceived by the word itself, as though 
the pro in composition indicated a forel€^viig 
of future events. It would be better to give 
it a vicarious force. The prophet is one who 
speaks for God. He is a messenger sent 

^ Sermon on Inspiration. 



PROPHECY DEFINED, 1 3 

to announce the divine will. He is one who 
** bubbles over" with the truth which has 
been poured into his religious consciousness. 
As Aaron was appointed to be the nabi^ of 
Moses, to speak in his stead, so the prophet 
is God's ^^ spokesman." Moses is called a 
prophet, as being a mediator between God 
and his people, receiving the message from- 
God in holy communion upon the mount or 
in the tabernacle, and announcing it in the 
public assembly. The promise was that a 
prophet like unto himself ^ should never be 
wanting to a faithful, obedient people ; that 
Moses should have an unbroken line of suc- 
cessors. It was only in times of apostasy 
and of national neglect of Jehovah that it 
was said '^ there was no open vision"^ or 
prophetic communication. Then men ^' ran 
to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,"^ 
and did not find it. This truth, that God 
dwells with those who obey him, and com- 
municates with them by means of inspired 

1 Exod. iv. 16. 2 Deut. xviii. 15, 18. 

3 I Sam, iii. i. * Amos viii. 12. 



14 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

messengers, was expressed in a proverbial say- 
ing: ''Where there is no vision, the people 
cast off restraint."^ 

It is too much the habit of thought, even 
in the Christian church, to associate the gift 
of prophecy with a few miraculously endowed 
persons of long ages past, who sufficiently re- 
vealed for all time the plans and will of God, 
and to suppose that the prophetic order has 
long since disappeared. A thoughtful glance 
at a few well-known passages of Scripture re- 
futes this notion. The essentially universal 
character of the gift of prophecy is shown 
in one of the earliest allusions to it. By 
the command of the Lord, Moses had chosen 
seventy elders to assist in the administration 
of government. All but two of these came 
to the tabernacle without the camp ; and the 
Lord took of the Spirit that was upon Moses, 
and put it upon them, and they did proph- 
esy. Eldad and Medad, the two absent ones, 
felt at the same moment the prophetic 
impulse, and began to speak, as the Spirit 

1 Prov. xxix. 1 8. 



PROPHECY DEFINED. 1 5 

gave them utterance, the language of a new, 
strange, joyous religious experience, the bur- 
den of which was doubtless praise unto God, 
if we are to judge by many later prophetic 
utterances. A young man, zealous for reli- 
gious proprieties, ran and told Moses ; and 
Joshua, thinking that his leader might wish 
to have a monopoly of the prophetic gift, 
exclaimed, ''My Lord Moses, forbid them!" 
The reply of Moses showed him to be so 
fully possessed of the true spirit of prophecy 
that he had nothing to fear from any rivals. 
" Enviest thou for my sake } Would God that 
all the Lord's people were prophets, and that 
the Lord would put his Spirit upon them."^ 
That utterance contains the very gist of 
prophecy. Its liberality of sentiment, the 
breadth and spirituality of the conception, the 
fervency of desire, and the glimpse of what 
might be hoped for in the future, reveal that 
the Spirit of the Lord was certainly upon 
Moses, and had not at all been diminished 
by being shared with the seventy. It mat- 

1 Num. xi. 29. 



1 6 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

ters not for our present purpose whether this 
narrative be taken as strictly and literally 
historical, or whether it be the product of a 
later age, founded on tradition. It expresses 
in either case an early view of the nature 
of prophecy. It is the result of the out- 
pouring of the Spirit of the Lord. It is not 
necessarily predictive, except as every fresh 
manifestation of God awakens ardent long- 
ings and glorious hopes of still better things 
to come ; and it may be shared by all who 
are truly the people of God. 

Centuries rolled away. The idea and scope 
of prophecy and the number of the prophets 
had been greatly enlarged. The message of 
God had come more and more clearly to the 
religious consciousness. Ecstatic emotions had 
become more subordinated to clear perceptions 
of divine truth and righteousness. Oracular 
responses by means of the mysterious tcriin and 
thiLnivti7n had been entirely discarded. Schools 
of the prophets had been established. From 
all classes of society God had selected men, and 
w^omen too, to go out among the people and 



PROPHECY DEFINED. 1/ 

speak for him. Joel perceived the tendency 
and the need of the prophetic spirit, and 
voiced the prayer of Moses as the utterance 
of his own expectant faith. " It shall come to 
pass that I will pour out my Spirit upon all 
flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall 
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, 
your young men shall see visions, and also 
upon the servants and upon the handmaids 
in those days will I pour out my Spirit."^ 
Here, too, it is seen that God is no respecter of 
persons in the bestowment of prophetic gifts. 
All may and should become prophets. Even 
the slaves, male and female, may be filled 
with the Spirit, who shall by dreams, visions, 
and holy communings inspire them to the 
utterance of divine truth. 

Other centuries elapsed, and Moses' prayer 
and Joel's expectation begin to be fulfilled. 
The Spirit of prophecy is outpoured first in 
the upper room, and upon the three thousand 
converts of Pentecost ; then upon the house- 
hold of Cornelius, as a proof that all God's 

1 Joel ii. 28, 29. 



1 8 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

gifts are offered to the whole world ; then 
upon the converts at Ephesus, who had 
known only John's baptism, and had not be- 
fore apprehended their full privilege as believ- 
ers in Christ ; and in fact upon the church 
at large. All did prophesy. The Corinthian 
church came behind no other in any spiritual 
gift, yet they were exhorted to desire ear- 
nestly that they might prophesy rather than 
possess miraculous gifts of healing or of 
tongues. These new gifts were not to super- 
sede the old. The prophetic order was rather 
to be enlarged, and to continue down to the 
end of time. Pentecost was but the beginning 
of a new dispensation, which is yet not en- 
tirely new, but makes the exceptional gifts of 
the old dispensation the common privilege of 
all Christian believers. In this all the Lord's 
people are called to be prophets ; and as the 
growing burden of prophetic utterances then 
was the coming of the Messiah, so now the 
very soul of prophecy continues to be the 
testimony concerning Jesus. ^ 

1 Rev. xix. lo. 



II. 

THE PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER, 



It is noteworthy how as we rise in the scale of prophecy one by 
one the concomitants of the older and lower stages fall away. Ephod 
and teraphim are consigned to the owls and to the bats. The links 
which connected prophecy with mantic disappear. Every kind of 
physical stimulus is discarded. The prophet no longer seeks to 
work himself up into a state of physical excitement in order to court 
revelation. . . . The hand of God may be heavy upon them, but yet 
they do not lose their full personahty. Instead of being mere passive 
instruments their intelligence is active. They are not a mere flute 
or lyre for the Spirit to blow through ; or, if they are, there is a fine 
quality of tone which belongs to the reed or to the strings. The 
impulse is given, and all the faculties and powers of the man are 
stirred to unwonted energy, in which however, as if to give it the 
stamp of nature and reality, there mingles something of his weakness 
as well as of his strength. The prophets are above all things impasv 
sioned seers of spiritual truth and preachers of religion. 

Professor W. Sanday. 



1 




11. 

THE PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 

To the purified soul of Isaiah the air seemed 
filled with divine voices calling for messengers. 
*^ Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? " 
He did not first receive a call to the prophetic 
office, and then determine whether or not he 
would be obedient to it. Rather, having al- 
ready the spirit of obedience, waiting upon 
God in his temple, he saw the vision and heard 
the call. God had been a long time there, and 
always calling for helpers. He has been call- 
ing ever since, and one need not go to Jeru- 
salem to see and hear him. The Macedonian 
cry, ''Come over and help us,'' is the echo of 
the voice divine, and may be heard on every 
breeze. Paul, too, got his commission to 
preach the gospel to the Gentiles after he 
had exclaimed ''What wilt thou have me to 
do.'^" A complete willingness to go anywhere 

21 



22 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

and to do anything for God and humanity, so 
that duty and privilege become one, is the 
prime condition of rightly interpreting God's 
will concerning us. It was their worshipful 
spirit, their trustful allegiance to God, their 
great love for his people, that made the He- 
brew prophets so receptive of divine impres- 
sions. 

God is calling unto everybody to make this 
world happier and better, to save it from the 
twin evils of sin and ignorance that afflict 
mankind. How and where he can best assist 
in this work is the problem for every conse- 
crated soul to solve under the guidance of 
Providence and in the light of reason. What- 
ever may be his avocation, his vocation is the 
service of humanity ; and in pursuit of that 
he will find frequent opportunities to speak for 
God, to be a true prophet. The pressing need 
of the church and world is a great company of 
such minor prophets or lay preachers. A mis- 
take too often made is that a call to prophesy 
or preach imposes as a duty the cessation of 
all other employments. It is necessary only 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 23 

to subordinate all other employments, and 
make them contributory to the one great pur- 
pose of life. Paul was a lay preacher, ordained 
by no human authority, who worked at his 
trade of tent-making or preached the gospel, 
according to the need of the hour. 

A call to the prophetic office or to the 
Christian ministry does not differ essentially 
from a general call to the service of God and 
humanity. God sets before his servants many 
an open door of usefulness. It is safe to 
enter the nearest one. The present duty is 
the thing at hand that needs to be done. He 
who passes by an opportunity to do good in 
order to find a better one, will search in vain. 
It is the busy workman who gets called to 
higher service. Whoever is convinced that 
he can accomplish most good in the Christian 
ministry, is plainly called to attempt such 
work, first having fitted himself for it. The 
results will determine whether or not he was 
mistaken in his conviction. This will prove 
a far safer rule to follow than an impression 
that one must preach regardless of results. 



24 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

Christ's apostles were chosen and sent forth 
for the purpose of bringing forth much fruit. 
God calls men to success, and not to failure. 
It must be remembered, however, that present 
apparent failure may be the necessary con- 
dition of larger future success. But if the 
present line of conduct is not surely tend- 
ing toward the accomplishment of the work in 
hand, if we have not good reasons for expect- 
ing ultimate victory, the sooner we change our 
course the better. We cannot fall back upon 
any supposed call, and continue a profitless 
undertaking. This amounts to saying that 
God guides men by enlightened reason rather 
than by impressions. 

It matters little whether the call to the pro- 
phetic office be accompanied by some strange 
experience of vision, dream, or trance. The 
essence of the call consists in a profound con- 
viction that such is God's will. It matters not 
whether this conviction be wrought gradually 
or suddenly. The main thing is to have it, 
not as a remembrance of the past, but as an 
ever-abiding and constantly intensified reality. 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER, 25 

It should grow with prayer, self-examination, 
and study of the truth to be proclaimed. Not 
many have heard, like Paul, a voice from heaven 
calling them to the ministry ; but all may feel 
as deeply as he the sense of moral obligation 
expressed in his, ^' Woe is me if I preach not 
the gospel." Few have seen a vision like that 
of Isaiah in the temple. No live coal has 
touched their lips ; but the Holy Ghost has 
touched the hearts of many, and constrained 
them to say, '' The Spirit of the Lord God is 
upon me, because he hath anointed me to 
preach good tidings.'' It is well to have the 
anointing of woe as well as that of gladness. 
The conviction of duty may abide when the 
impulsive joy has subsided. The good tidings 
may not always be received as such ; and the 
modern prophet may sometimes feel like flee- 
ing into the desert, and sheltering himself 
under a juniper-tree. Then the still, small 
voice of conscience must drive him back to 
proclaim again, and with increased earnestness, 
the message of the Lord. 

It has been truthfully said that no Hebrew 



26 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

prophet of note was the product of the pro- 
phetical schools ; and this has been used as 
an argument against theological schools. Too 
common have been the invectives against man- 
ufactured or man-made ministers. It is true 
that God now, as in ancient days, sometimes 
lays his hand upon an Elisha at the plough, or 
an Amos tending his flocks and gathering syca- 
more fruit, as well as upon a cultured Isaiah at 
court, or a theologically trained Ezekiel in the 
office of the priest. Still, the spirit of prophecy 
may drive one first to the schools as it drove 
Paul into Arabia. It must not be forgotten, 
too, that the preacher of our times must be, 
like John the Baptist, more than a prophet. 
He must be also pastor, and ^^apt to teach." 
Three years of devout meditation upon the 
message to be delivered ought not to diminish, 
but rather to intensify, the conviction of a 
special call to the prophetic office ; and he who 
enters a theological school with the feeling 
that he is called to preach, and goes out un- 
certain about it, has either been made a good 
deal wiser, or has failed to utilize his oppor- 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 2/ 

tunities. Here is the place to try the spirits, 
whether they be of God, to drive out selfish 
ambition, love of authority, itching for applause, 
desire for social position and increased salary, 
or even laziness, that with other kindred spirits 
of the pit is urging some young gentlemen into 
the ministry. There were such false prophets 
even before the school of Samuel was estab- 
lished ; and afterward not all those who prophe- 
sied smooth things, and to ^'eat bread" by 

• 

their profession, came from the prophetical 
schools. The bread-and-butter prophets are 
older than the time of Amos, and their order 
has never died out. They have been power- 
less imitators of those who have been truly 
called of God. The professional prophets have 
in various ages ceased more and more to re- 
ceive and deliver the word of the Lord, and so 
God has gone out of the schools to find where 
he could men who would speak for him. Amos 
revived the old idea of prophecy. The prophet 
of the wilderness was a rebuke to all the doc- 
tors of law and divinity. Galilean fishermen 
were called to do the work that properly be- 



28 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

longed to priests and scribes. St. Francis 
organized his great band of mendicant friars 
to supply the preaching which the clergy of 
the schools failed to give. The lay preachers 
of early Methodism were true prophets of God, 
anointed with the Spirit to deliver the mes- 
sage which the ordained graduates of the uni- 
versities were failing to deliver. The clergy 
of to-day need to examine and arouse them- 
selves to a realization of the greatness of their 
vocation, lest the less cultured preachers of the 
Salvation Army shall, by greater zeal, devotion, 
and success, prove the former to be prophets 
self-called. The tendency of the schools has 
always been to stimulate intellectual pride, and 
to emphasize dogma more than experimental 
religion. We are not to conclude that God 
prefers ignorant or uncultured men as his 
messengers to the people. Moses, Samuel, 
Isaiah, Paul, and all the greatest prophets since, 
have been trained in schools, and were leaders 
in scholarship. One such man is often worth a 
score of uncultured geniuses, however baptized 
with the Spirit. We should only be watchful 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 29 

lest the theological school spoil the prophets 
in embryo, or attract men of mercenary spirit. 
We can readily imagine a conscientious 
young man who enters a theological school 
uncertain about his call to the Christian min- 
istry, but with a desire to learn the truth 
and to do God's will. Inasmuch as the gift 
of prophecy is to be '' desired,'' or sought 
earnestly, he seeks by prayer and study to 
gain it. Association with others, supposed 
to have been called of God to preach, modi- 
fies his previous notions of what constitutes 
a call. The broadening horizon of truth and 
enlarged views of the needs of humanity ex- 
pand his conception of the greatness and re- 
sponsibility of the ministerial office. As the 
office grows greater he grows smaller, and cries 
out, *'Who is sufficient for these things.'^" 
Meanwhile, prayer and meditation have in- 
flamed his love for humanity. He sees noth- 
ing else than the Christian ministry worth 
living for, though it may once have appeared 
to him very repulsive. His occasional efforts 
in the pulpit seem to be accompanied by spir- 



30 



SPEAKING FOR GOD. 



itual blessings to the hearers. At last faith 
triumphs over doubts and uncertainties, and 
he exclaims, '^ Our sufficiency is of God, who 
by his providence and Spirit hath made us 
to be able ministers of the New Testament/' 
In this spirit he enters upon the duties of the 
ministerial office. Is he not a prophet called 
of God as much as those who have seen visions 
and dreamed dreams t The subsequent life 
must give the final answer. 

God's call for messengers has been mis- 
interpreted by some. Feeling a holy impulse 
to win souls for Christ, they leap at once to 
the conclusion that they must have a pastor- 
ate, and repeat from Sunday to Sunday the 
one message, the offer of salvation to sinners. 
As this can be done with very little study, 
they feel at once qualified for the work of 
the ministry. Such may be evangelists in 
the broad sense of the word, announcing glad 
tidings privately or publicly as occasion may 
offer. Pastors, teachers, edifiers of the church, 
they cannot be. It is folly, if not sin, for any 
one to attempt to address the same audience 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 3 1 

year after year, or even for one year, unless 
he has well prepared himself to do so. The 
shepherd is not to fleece, but to feed, the flock. 
He should feel ashamed and condemned in 
attempting to minister to his congregation un- 
less he has studied to show himself approved. 
As a religious teacher he ought to be in edu- 
cational ability and acquirements as much 
superior to his audience as the professor in 
the schools is superior to the pupils therein. 
The need of itinerant evangelists, who can go 
rapidly from place to place and powerfully 
proclaim their one message to the people, is 
as great now as ever. When a successful 
evangelist becomes a settled pastor, he is 
often sadly out of place. He finds himself un- 
qualified for his office. His need is a broader 
education, and he must get it in some way. As 
a messenger he can announce only what he 
himself has learned ; for God will not continue 
to speak through lazy and incompetent heralds. 
A few are capable of self-culture, and make 
themselves leaders in thought and religious 
instructors by digging for wisdom as for hid 



32 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

treasure. It is difficult to conceive how one 
can be filled with the spirit of truth without 
being in some degree a progressive student. 
The vast majority of preachers must seek a 
thorough preparation before entering upon the 
duties of the ministerial offi.ce. Otherwise 
they are likely to be tiresome repeaters of 
commonplace and hortatory remarks. 

The preacher, like the prophet, must be a 
" man of God." Better than to be able to 
point to a definite time in the past, when by 
vision, dream, ecstatic trance, or having seen 
the Lord, he was chosen for the work of the 
ministry, is it to realize daily that God's Spirit 
dwells within him, giving divine impulse to 
prophetic thought and speech. Thus his whole 
conversation and deportment will stamp him 
as a man called and commissioned of God to 
a special life-work. He has an ever-increas- 
ing realization of the magnitude, power, and 
dignity of his office. The truths that well 
up in his soul, and find utterance from time to 
time, have a reflex influence upon himself, and 
develop seriousness, moral earnestness, and in- 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 33 

tensity of religious conviction. No trifler or 
jester can be a prophet. A prophet is a good 
deal more than a story-teller, whether in the 
pulpit or out. The realities of the eternal 
world, which he is called to declare,, force him 
to much prayer, meditation, and communion 
with God ; and, being much with God, some- 
thing of divinity will attach to him, and make 
men who come into contact with him feel that 
they are in the presence of one of God's am- 
bassadors. The common people used to shrink 
back half in awe from Dante, and point to 
him in the streets as the man who had come 
back from Inferno. His great theme, no less 
than the trials of his life, gave him a solemn 
aspect as of an inhabitant of another world. 
And truly our citizenship is in heaven, and 
we are messengers of the Most High. How 
can we exchange so readily the serious aspect 
and the solemn utterances of the pulpit for 
the jovial manner and small talk of society 1 
Immeasurably worse is it if we try to enter- 
tain our audiences with jocose anecdotes, 
laughable turns of wit, and pleasing thought. 



34 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

which serve to give the preacher a reputa- 
tion for being brilliant and sharp, but never 
weighty and powerful. A brilliant, sharp, 
entertaining, and popular prophet ! Is any in- 
congruity seen in these terms ? A man of 
God, and a jolly good fellow ! Are these as- 
sociate ideas? Don't cry out, ** Asceticism ! " 
A merry disposition may be sanctified without 
being destro3^ed. Brilliant wit may be used 
for God's glory in the furtherance of holy 
causes. There comes to mind the reply of a 
quaint preacher who was rebuked for levity, 
*' Brother, if the Lord had given you any wit, 
wouldn't you use it.?" Yes, use it; but do 
not abuse it. Let it be the ornamental fringe 
of conversation and discourse. *' Let your 
speech be alway with grace, seasoned with 
salt, that ye may know how ye ought to an- 
swer every man." 

It is true that the jovial preacher, light- 
hearted, talkative, who has a joke or a witti- 
cism for all, and is regarded as companionable 
by the worldly, is somewhat in demand. 
Verily he has his reward, and is not altogether 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER. 35 

useless. Our theme, however, is the preacher 
as prophet, not as popular lecturer or leader 
of a religious club. 

What is it that makes the truth powerful ? 
Is there something in its own inherent na- 
ture that convinces and persuades ? This seems 
to be the thought that underlies the old prov- 
erb, 'magna est Veritas et prcBvalebit, But 
it is doubtful if truth left to itself be as 
powerful in this world as error. With pure 
souls it doubtless has great weight. To know 
it is to love and practise it. But sinful men 
love darkness rather than light. Many prefer 
to believe a lie. The god of this world 
hath blinded their eyes. Bigotry and super- 
stition dread a new idea more than anything 
else. With such the truth must be supported 
by a great personality to give it any force, 
and it has as much authority as the person 
who utters it. The ward politician may some- 
times stumble upon a great political maxim, 
but nobody pays any attention to it. Let 
a Gladstone utter the same words, and the 
world recognizes their profundity and value. 



36 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

An obscure preacher may sometimes exhibit 
polished gems of thought, but nobody per- 
ceives their brilUancy. Let some high digni- 
tary of the church say the same things and 
all applaud. It makes a vast difference who 
utters the truth. Station, reputation, author- 
ity, give weight to the utterance. Moral truth 
must be backed by character, and the truths 
of religion must be re-enforced by the power 
of the Holy Spirit. No human personality 
has power enough to convict and persuade 
the sinner. He must be made to feel that 
back of the truth uttered is the person and 
authority of God. The utterance and the 
life of the preacher must be of such a char- 
acter as to carry the conviction that he is 
an ambassador from heaven. Then sinners 
tremble, as Ahab before Elijah, Herod before 
the Baptist, and Felix before Paul. To be 
truly successful the preacher must have God 
enthroned within. When the Comforter has 
come unto you he will convince the world 
through you of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment. 



PROPHETIC CALL AND CHARACTER, 3/ 

In the earliest accounts of Hebrew proph- 
ecy there is a picture of a country youth 
approaching the *'hill of God," where there 
is a school of the prophets. There meet him 
a company with instruments of music and 
songs of praise. Their prophetic spirit seems 
to be contagious. The youth catches their 
enthusiasm. The Spirit of the Lord comes 
upon him, and he is *^ turned into another 
man." He also begins to prophesy, much to 
the astonishment of the hearers. A change 
identical in character with this is not now 
desirable, for this youth acted a good deal 
like one hypnotized or temporarily insane.^ 
Yet it were well if in every place of sacred 
learning there were a contagious, enthusias- 
tic, joyous, religious spirit that would trans- 
form every youth who enters it. Thus there 
would go out into the Christian ministry a 
**band of men whose hearts God has touched." 

1 I Sam. X. 5-13. Cf. xix. 23, 24. 



1 



III. 

THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 



We have to face the truism, the neglected truism, that every liv- 
ing preacher must receive a communication direct from God. This 
is in the last resort the only justification of preaching at all. . . . 
No man taketh this honor to himself. To be God's mouthpiece 
when God is not speaking through him is a fraud of the palpable 
kind which men will not away with. . . . All manner of sins may 
be forgiven a preacher, — a harsh voice, a clum^sy delivery, a bad pro- 
nunciation, an insufficient scholarship, a crude doctrine, an ignorance 
of men ; but there is one defect which cannot be forgiven, for it is a 
kind of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, — it cannot be forgiven 
him if he preaches when he has not received a message from God to 
deliver. Woe unto those prophets whom the Lord hath not sent ! 

Rev. Robert F, Korton. 



III. 

THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 

The modern prophet, like the ancient, must 
receive not only his call, but also his message, 
directly from God. This would appear self- 
evident, for God surely cannot call a mes- 
senger to speak for him without giving him 
something to say. It is strange that the 
church has emphasized so much the special 
divine call, and insisted so little upon every 
preacher's having a message directly com- 
mitted to him by God. Doubtless this neglect 
has arisen from the assumption that God has 
given his full and complete message to the 
world in an inspired book, and that his mes- 
senger is to utter nothing more nor less than 
what he finds written therein. It may be that 
a misinterpretation of the closing words of the 
New Testament Apocalypse has helped to con- 
firm this assumption, *' If any man shall add 

41 



42 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

unto these things, God shall add unto him the 
plagues that are written in this book : and if 
any man shall take away from the words of 
the book of this prophecy, God shall take away 
his part out of the book of life, and out of 
the holy city, and from the things which are 
written in this book/'^ It is evident that this 
passage has no reference to the New Testa- 
ment canon ; for it had not been formed, and 
a large part of it had probably not been 
written. The words cited can mean nothing 
more than a caution concerning the use of 
the Apocalypse itself. Some suppose that 
they refer to the prophecies contained in the 
''little book,'' of chapter x. 2, 8, 9. 

As a record of God's progressive revelation 
of himself and of his will concerning us, the 
Bible is for us par excellence the word of God.^ 

1 Rev. xxii. i8, 19. 

2 ** Applied to the Bible as a whole, the expression, *Word 
of God,' seems to savor of the old theory of inspiration, which 
no one now cares to maintain, according to which the Holy 
Ghost dictated to the biblical writers the very terms which they 
were to use; it seemed to place every part of the Bible upon 
precisely the same spiritual level; it seems to imply an abso- 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 43 

This does not exclude other revelations. It 
necessarily presupposes other revelations which 
must have been given before a record of them 
could have been made. God has spoken in 
many ways. As the work necessarily reveals 
the workman, so " the heavens declare the 
glory of God ; " and '^ the invisible things 
of him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things 
that are made, even his eternal power and 
Godhead." ^ Messages concerning him were 
read by Job and the Psalmist in the starry 
skies. We are not merely to accept their 
statements concerning God as he was revealed 
to them in his works ; but using their words 
as guideboards, we ourselves should look into 

luteness, a finality, a perfection, which, as the instances that I 
have referred to sufficiently show, do not inhere in every par- 
ticular statement which Scripture contains. No doubt the term 
could be so defined as to make it coextensive with the whole 
Bible; but there would always be the danger of the technical 
definition being forgotten, and the popular acceptation being 
substituted for it. And it should be carefully remembered that 
this use of the term is not biblical." — Professor Driver's 
*' Sermons on the Old Testament," p. 158 f. 
1 Rom. i. 20, 



44 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

the heavens, and examine as fully as we can 
God's works, so as to find their revelations of 
the Creator confirmed and enlarged. Thus the 
word of the Lord comes unto us. On the writ- 
ten page it may be to us only an abstract state- 
ment whose meaning we do not know. The 
prophets saw a message of God in the past and 
on-going events of history. His will and plan 
and moral government were thereby discerned. 
We are not merely to accept on authority their 
conclusions ; but we are to judge all subsequent 
and present history in the light of their reve- 
lations, in order that we, too, may see God's 
hand in national affairs. The prophets give 
us a clew to the philosophy of history. We 
may follow that clew out to a rational system. 
Thus clearer revelations come to us, and again 
we have a " Thus saith the Lord " in our 
own souls. The prophets heard his voice espe- 
cially in the approval and condemnation of con- 
science, and were thus impelled to administer 
rebuke to sin. Unless our consciences are 
seared as with a hot iron, we hear the same 
divine voice in us, and recognize that the reve- 



1 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 45 

lations of Scripture pertaining to morals are 
not true merely because they are in the Bible, 
but they are in the Bible because they are 
true. Thus a progressive moral revelation is 
still going on. The word of the Lord is com- 
ing unto us. God spoke to the prophets in 
mighty convictions, hopes, longings, and ex- 
pectations. Their confidence in God led them 
to exclaim, '' It shall come to pass. It must 
be so ! " With the same inspirations in our 
souls we know as well as Paul, and not merely 
because he said it, that all things are working 
together for our good, and that ^^if this earthly 
house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have 
a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.'' All these 
revelations are not new to us, but confirma- 
tions of the old ; and it was much the same 
with them, for truth is as old as eternity. It is 
the realization of truth that constitutes the 
genuine revelation. Before that our eyes are 
blinded, and with an open Bible before us 
God may be as unrevealed to us as he is in 
nature to the idolatrous heathen. 



46 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

It is very important to get the original 
meaning of ^^ the word of the Lord " firmly 
fixed in mind. It came to Moses, Samuel, 
and the prophets in general, as a direct inspi- 
ration. In the beginning they had no sacred 
book or books to refer to, and there is no 
evidence that any Hebrew prophet got his 
message from previous prophets and inspired 
historians. It is only in later times, after 
prophecy had almost ceased, that a canon of 
written laws and prophecies was deemed neces- 
sary. Appeal was made to a living prophet 
rather than to a written word. The knowl- 
edge of former divine revelations was gained 
largely by oral tradition. Few had copies of 
the sacred writings. After the Babylonian 
exile copies of the collected canon were mul- 
tiplied, and gradually gained for themselves 
more and more reverence. They became the 
^'word of the Lord.'' It is the written word 
that Psalm cxix. extols, but the prophets do 
not have this in mind. They were able to 
say, ^' Thus saith the Lord unto me." They 
had something special to say to the people 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 4/ 

of their times, to call them back from sin to 
righteousness, and from idolatry to the service 
of the living God ; to rebuke the wickedness 
of rulers, and fasten moral responsibility where 
it belonged ; to encourage the people in time 
of national distress, to comfort them in cap- 
tivity, and to inspire them with the hope 
of a great Deliverer. These harangues, de- 
nunciations, rebukes, instructions, and encour- 
agements delivered by ^^ open-air journalists," 
were afterward interwoven with history, and 
committed to writing, either by the prophets 
themselves, or by others of a later time. They 
will always serve as guides and illustrations 
of the spirit and substance of prophecy. The 
reason why they are valuable to us ^^for doc- 
trine, reproof, correction, and instruction" is, 
that God and the principles of his moral gov- 
ernment are the same in all ages. God in us 
confirms the truths of Scripture. The facts 
of sacred history, as well as its parables and 
legends, are illustrations to make those truths 
real and powerful. Criticism may modify our 
interpretation of the illustrations ; " truth re- 
mains the same forever. 



48 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

It is inconceivable that the modern prophet 
is called of God to repeat only what original 
prophets said thousands of years ago, and en- 
deavor to show how God in speaking to the 
Israelites gave special messages to us also, or 
how the prophets uttered dark sayings to the 
people of their times designed only for us 
upon whom the ends of the earth have come. 
The prophets spoke to their own generation, 
and we must speak to ours. The times have 
changed. There has been some progress in 
revelation. God's truth has been unfolded, 
'' in many parts and in diverse manners," in 
recent times also. We are learning to read 
his revelation in the works of his hands, in 
the great ethnic religions, in the onward march 
of history, more clearly than in special provi- 
dential events ; in the consensus of the world's 
best and greatest thinkers, even better than 
in special subjective impressions of the spirit; 
and most of all in the better understood per- 
son and office-work of his only begotten Son. 

A word is an expression of a thought. 
In whatever way God may communicate his 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE, 49 

thoughts to men, such communication is his 
word. We are not to think of a visible pres- 
ence, nor of an audible voice. No man hath 
seen God at any time. It is enough if his 
message is felt in the soul with the force of 
indubitable conviction. God's greatest reve- 
lation of himself and of truth is in the person 
of his Son, who is therefore fitly called the 
Word. " The word of the Lord,'' which came 
from time to time to Old Testament prophets, 
is never spoken of as coming to the apostles 
and New Testament writers, since 'Hhe word 
of God '' has come to all. The change in 
phraseology is noticeable. God's full message 
of grace concerning salvation has found its 
expression in the unspeakable gift of his Son. 
It is not necessary nor possible that he should 
add anything more. Throughout the New 
Testament ''the word of God" means not a 
written revelation, but God's message of sal- 
vation in Jesus Christ orally proclaimed by 
anointed ambassadors. When Jesus prayed, 
'' Sanctify them through the truth ; thy word 
is truth," he referred to the message which 



50 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

he had delivered, and not to the Old Testa- 
ment. This the context plainly shows. This 
was the *^ word " which the persecuted Chris- 
tians went everywhere preaching.^ This was 
the 'Svord of his grace" able to build up 
the Ephesian Church. ^ This " vv^ord of God/' 
vitalized in the experience of believers, be- 
came the sword of the Spirit, living, powerful, 
and a discerner of the thoughts and intents 
of the heart. ^ Christ is the touchstone of 
character. He is the living word that sur- 
passes all other revelations. 

Certainly the words that fell from the lips 
of Jesus may be called God's message to the 
world in a superlative sense ; yet in all the 
Epistles of Paul,^ Peter, John, James, and Jude 
no saying of Jesus is quoted. In the Acts 
of the Apostles, Luke records several epito- 

1 Acts viii. 4. 2 Acts xx. 22. ^ Eph. vi. 17 ; Heb. iv» 12. 

* As exceptions to this statement might be cited 2 Cor. xii. 
9, where Paul gives the words of Christ in answer to prayer, 
*' My grace is sufficient for thee," etc., and i Cor. xi. 23 ff., 
the institution of the Lord's Supper. In the former case wise 
interpretation might claim nothing more than a subjective im- 
pression of thought, which the apostle shaped in his own 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 5 1 

mized sermons and addresses of Peter, Stephen, 
and Paul. They contain only one precious 
utterance of Jesus, — " It is more blessed to 
give than to receive.'' Throughout the Gospels, 
and in the Fourth Gospel especially, it is often 
difficult to determine what are the words of 
Jesus, and what are the comments of the 
Evangelists. These facts show what small 
estimate was put upon mere words by the 
sacred writers, how little they thought of 
verbal inspiration. It was enough for them 
to have ^^the mind of Christ," and so to re- 
produce in their own language the substance 
of his teaching. If the things spoken by 
Jesus were brought to their remembrance by 
the Comforter, they were expressed in Greek 
rather than in Aramaic ; and so we have but 
few precise utterances of our Saviour, those 
where the Aramaic has been preserved.^ No 

words; in the latter, a comparison with Luke's Gospel might 
lead to the conclusion that both writers received the account 
*'of the Lord" through tradition. The phraseology differs so 
much from that of Mark and Matthew that evidently the exact 
words of Christ are not given in any of the narratives. 
1 e.g., Mark v. 41; Matt, xxvii. 46. 



52 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

one need lament this. There can be no rea- 
sonable doubt that we have the substance of 
the teaching of Jesus; and we, too, can have 
"the mind of Christ" so as to interpret to 
others his message to the world. We preach 
him. He is the message. It has been well 
said that Christ came not so much to preach 
the gospel, as that there might be a gospel to 
be preached. 

The Pharisees in the time of Christ had 
the Old Testament canon. They searched it, 
and applied to it the most minute exegesis. 
With the most rigid dogmatism they declared 
it to be God's word, every jot and tittle of 
which was precious. Yet at the same time 
that they almost worshipped a written word, 
the real, consummate, incarnate Word of God 
they rejected and crucified. They rested in 
the deadness of the letter that killeth ; for 
whatever is dead produceth death. Eternal 
life flows from the living Word. It is re- 
ceived by means of the truth vitalized by the 
Holy Spirit. Something of the pharisaical 
spirit still lingers. Many are exceedingly 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 53 

zealous of the traditions of the Fathers. 
They are more careful to defend some an- 
tiquated dogma concerning the Bible, and to 
insist on the absolute authority of the letter, 
than to be filled with the gentle, charitable 
Spirit of Christ, and to have a living message 
of God burning in their souls. They are 
blind to on-going revelations, and so unable 
to interpret the old. 

It may be said that if much in the Old 
Testament has decayed and is ready to vanish 
away, it is only that its essential truths may 
reappear in new light ; and this is true. They 
shine forth in all brilliancy in Him who is the 
Light of the world. But here, too, the rev- 
elation given in him and by him nineteen 
centuries ago is not enough to furnish the 
preacher his theme. He is to preach some- 
thing more than a Christ historically portrayed 
by the first three Gospels or a Christ theologi- 
cally conceived by Paul and John. He has not 
any real message yet, till the Comforter has 
taken the things of Christ and shown them 
unto him. When Christ has been revealed 



54 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

unto him personally as " a Prince and a 
Saviour, '* then he can say with the apostles, 
'* We are witnesses of these things. " ^ From 
such revelation by the Spirit he must deduce 
his own system of theology, if he ever has 
one worth anything to himself or to anybody 
else, helped, to be sure, by all the teachings 
of the past. He must have, like Paul, some- 
thing that he can call, '' My Gospel. " Fore- 
most by a long distance among all helps to 
a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus 
must ever be the New Testament, and after 
that the Old ; yet if these be studied sim- 
ply as inspired histories, or as records of 
divine utterances completed and sealed up 
in the past, the preacher will not find his 
full message therein. The prophets of the 
early church did not pursue this method. 
They had no New Testament, and many 
converted from the Gentile world were ig- 
norant of the Old ; but they had a burning 
message of truth and righteousness, and of a 
Saviour personally revealed in them. Preach- 

1 Acts V. 31, 32. 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE, 55 

ing to the Jews, they grounded their ar- 
guments upon admitted truths of the Old 
Testament ; preaching to the Gentiles, they 
appealed only to the revelations made in na- 
ture and in conscience. 

Just as we never really learn righteousness 
by reading works on ethics, inspired or un- 
inspired, but, aided by these, we examine our 
own hearts and consciences to learn what 
God has revealed in us, so helped by all that 
has been written in all ages concerning Je- 
sus the Christ, we are to seek him in our 
hearts, and when he has been manifested 
unto us as not unto the world, we are to 
preach him as he has been revealed unto us. 
The historical background is useful and neces- 
sary, but it is not the entire picture. Hence- 
forth know we Christ no more after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit, as a living, spiritual pres- 
ence, able to forgive sins, and to save unto 
the uttermost. With such a message we 
shall not have so much need of the theol- 
ogy of Wesley or of Calvin, as many have 
supposed. It might be well also to remem- 



$6 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

ber, that the apostolic church won some of 
its grandest victories while Paul was persecut- 
ing it. We need to be on our guard lest what 
we call the gospel be little more than our 
private and inherited biblical theology or phi- 
losophy of religion, though it may not be 
dignified by those names. It may be very 
good for the schools and for controversial 
purposes ; but weary, discouraged, weak, and 
sinful men care nothing about it. They want 
a message from God to their souls coming 
straight through the preacher. They would 
see Jesus in some measure revealed by him. 
The true prophet is a seer^ one who sees 
things that others cannot see without his aid. 
A group of persons look out over a land- 
scape. Some one of keener vision than the 
rest discerns a far distant object. By point- 
ing it out, and describing it repeatedly, he per- 
suades and enables others to look and see for 
themselves. He pieces out their eyesight with 
his description. They never could have dis- 
cerned it till he had created for them some- 
thing approaching to a mental image of it. 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 5/ 

After all that he can say and do some will 
not look that way at all, declaring that the 
object is only in his mind's eye. So the 
prophets are the advanced thinkers of their 
age, the beholders and revealers of truth. 
Their testimony induces the believer to look 
and see for himself. It is not to be received 
absolutely without any testing. The seer 
does not create the object or the truth; he 
only points it out. 

I receive a letter from a friend. It is a 
revelation of his thought. I hold it in my 
hand. Have I a revelation of my friend's 
thought } In a certain external, objective 
sense, yes ; still, nothing is as yet revealed 
to me. I break the seal and try to read. It 
is written in an unknown language. I read, 
but do not understand. There is no revela- 
tion yet. An interpreter translates the letter 
into words that I understand. Instantly the 
thought of my friend flashes upon my mind. 
Now I have a revelation. Properly speaking, 
I had before only an expression of his thought, 
and not an impression. I know my friend 



58 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

must have written that letter, not from its 
precise words or phraseology, for these have 
been changed in the translation, but from the 
character of the message. It not only reveals 
his well-known and peculiar style of thought, 
but it reveals him, — his character, his quali- 
ties of heart and mind. So all God has done 
or said is an expression of his thought and 
of himself. The language is strange to many. 
A veil is upon the heart, so that they cannot 
see understandingly. When the heart turns 
to the Lord, an Interpreter comes and takes 
away the veil. Then only there is a real 
revelation ; and when the thoughts of God are 
rightly interpreted, there is something in the 
righteous man that recognizes their divine 
origin. ^' That must be from God,'' he says, 
^'it is so like him. It bears the impress of 
his character. It is worthy of him alone.'' 
He that is of God heareth God's words. 

We want no novelties in religion. Truth 
is old, but it needs to be renewed in every 
generation and in the soul of every preacher. 
A new statement of theology, — certainly we 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 59 

need it, and every generation will need it ; 
yet the truths essential to salvation and to 
holiness of life will always remain the same, 
though some things once thought essential 
may be eliminated. Some affect to scout 
at the idea of progress in the unfoldment 
and statement of religious truth, and are 
forever appealing unto the fathers as final 
arbiters, as though God could not or would 
not give unto the present and future genera- 
tions as clear or clearer viev/s of truth. Not 
anything is known till it is known in its 
relations. The more fully its relations are 
discerned and grasped, the more clearly and 
forcibly it is known. The truths proclaimed 
by the old prophets and apostles must be 
seen in their relations to the persons and 
events that now surround us before we are 
ready to prophesy. Then the word or mes- 
sage of God becomes living and powerful. 
We need visions not so much of the past as 
of the present and immediate future. 

The truth must be made intensely real to 
the speaker before he can make it so to his 



6o SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

hearers. Like the revelator on Patmos, he 
must " see the voice " that speaks to him. 
Every time he enters the pulpit he should 
feel that God has commissioned him to say 
something special that day. A general com- 
mission is not enough. He must feel the 
hand of the Lord laid upon him frequently. 
Under such divine impulse what would other- 
wise be a commonplace remark becomes a say- 
ing of striking originality. He has added to 
it the weight of his own soul and the power 
of God working through him. No novelty 
of phraseology or ornamentation of rhetoric 
can take the place of this illuminating and 
energizing power within. What is irrepres- 
sible wins its way to the hearts of hearers, 
and sways their wills unto obedience to God. 
Paul asks for prayers that utterance may be 
given unto him, so that he may speak the 
truth boldly as he ought to speak.^ The 
apostles shortly after Pentecost prayed to- 
gether for the same gift.^ They were not 
seeking for new revelations. They wanted 

1 Eph. vi. 19, 20. 2 Acts iv. 29. 



THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. 6 1 

only boldness and power to speak God's mes- 
sage already well known to them. And how 
can we expect the same persons to listen to 
us a hundred times or more every year un- 
less God's message in us is new every morn- 
ing and fresh every evening ? Have we not 
ourselves listened to many a well-worded ser- 
mon, that evinced much scholarship and some 
power of thought, and still gone away with 
the conviction that the preacher had really 
nothing to say ? Let the preacher beware 
lest some hungry friend in his journey come 
to him, and he have nothing to set before 
him. 



IV. 

PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 



To Isaiah inspiration was nothing more nor less than the pos- 
session of certain strong moral and religious convictions, which he 
felt he owed to the communication of the Spirit of God, and ac- 
cording to which he interpreted, and even dared to foretell, the 
history of his people and of the world. Our study completely 
dispels, on the evidence of the Bible itself, that view of inspiration 
and prediction, so long held in the church, which it is difficult to 
define, but which means something like this : that the prophet be- 
held a vision of the future in its actual detail, and read this off 
as a man may read the history of the past out of a book or a 
clear memory. This is a very simple view, but too simple either 
to meet the facts of the Bible, or to afford to men any of that 
intellectual and spiritual satisfaction which the discovery of the 
Divine method is sure to afford. . . . Isaiah prophesied and 
predicted all he did from loyalty to two simple truths, which he 
tells us he received from God himself : that sin must be punished, 
and that the people of God must be saved. This simple faith, 
acting along with a wonderful knowledge of human nature and 
ceaseless vigilance of affairs, constituted inspiration for Isaiah. 

Professor George Adam Smith. 



IV. 

PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 

Against this parallel between ancient and 
modern prophets it may be objected that the 
former were immensely superior to the latter, 
and indeed must be classified by themselves, 
because they were inspired. They spoke as 
moved or borne along by the Holy Ghost. 
It is claimed that the divine message was 
directly communicated to them in a super- 
natural manner, and that they spoke or wrote 
as passive instruments in the hands of God, 
more than as agents co-operating by choice 
with him. A brief examination of this claim 
is needful. 

It has always been maintained in the Prot- 
estant church that the preacher of the gos- 
pel is the successor of the Hebrew prophet 
rather than of the Jewish priest ; and yet 
such a meaning has been given to inspira- 

65 



66 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

tion, and such extravagant claims nave been 
made for the old prophets, that the Christian 
preacher has, in the thought of many, been 
as completely separated from the prophetic 
order as from the priesthood. Indeed, by in- 
sisting upon that outworn fiction of divinely 
established orders in the ministry, and by de- 
bating whether the bishopric be an order or 
an office, some are returning to the priestly 
conception of the ministry, and abandoning 
the prophetic. It would be better to throw 
aside all such traditional rubbish, and to look 
upon a Christian preacher as a prophet or 
spokesman of God, called from the ranks of 
the laymen, and having no more real need 
of ordination than the Hebrew prophets had. 
No one of them was ever ordained of men ; 
each got his commission, like Paul, directly 
from God. The laying on of hands may be 
all very proper and wise as a solemn public 
consecration of the modern prophet to his 
work. It is well that a supposed call of God 
should be tested by the wisdom of other 
prophets ; but the abuse of episcopal authority, 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION, 67 

SO frequent throughout the history of the 
church, has shown that it is quite as needful 
that the bishops should take their hands off, 
as lay them on, the candidates for the min- 
istry. Such ordination, though sanctioned by 
the New Testament, is not of divine com- 
mand, and notwithstanding the claiii of the 
Roman Catholic Church confers nq ^' charac- 
ter,*' indelible or deleble. The true preacher is 
just the same man after as before ordination, 
and belongs to the one order of Spirit-baptized 
Christians. He may have extraordinary gifts 
of nature, and a special anointing of the Spirit. 
There are greater and minor prophets in all 
ages. There are many degrees of inspiration, 
and some of the old prophets may have pos- 
sessed it to a higher degree than any of recent 
times; yet in all that is essential to prophetic 
inspiration the Christian preacher -of to-day 
may and should be as they were. For what 
is inspiration but the breathing of the Spirit 
of God into the conscious soul of man, ener- 
gizing all his faculties, setting on fire truth 
already known, and thereby giving him spir- 



6S 



SPEAKING FOR GOD. 



itual insight into the nature and plans of 
God ? Inspiration does not necessarily reveal 
anything new. Many of the Hebrew proph- 
ets reveal nothing before unknown. They 
take the facts of past and contemporaneous 
history as a revelation, and point out the 
hand of God in them. They were inspired 
to see ^the significance of those facts in the 
light of old truths, and thus to enlarge and 
modify former conceptions of God, man, and 
the relations between them. 

One may here startle one's self by inquir- 
ing if the modern preacher may be inspired 
and receive revelations of truth in essentially 
the same manner as Isaiah and Paul. The 
difference is in degree rather than in kind. 
Every person filled with the Spirit has mo- 
ments when truth dawns on him with wonder- 
ful brilliancy and power. It is a ** Thus saith 
the Lord *' to him. A proper humility and 
reverence may hinder him from considering 
himself privileged as Paul, because of a feel- 
ing that he lacks Paul's capacity, knowledge, 
and special mission. Yet Paul revealed but 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 69 

little that is not germinally found in the Old 
Testament and in the words of Jesus. He 
points us to his own sources of information. 
*' Be not unwise, but understanding what the 
will of the Lord is. Be filled with the Spirit." ^ 
A little more faith and knowledge of God's 
ways may lead us to shorten by degrees the 
long distance between ourselves and the great 
apostle. 

To be inspired certainly cannot mean any- 
thing more than to be filled with the Holy 
Spirit; and the New Testament declares this 
to be the privilege of all Christian believers 
with varying results. In the Jewish and in 
the Christian church some have been inspired 
to speak, some to write, and some to do. At 
Pentecost all who received the promise of 
the Father spoke '' as the Spirit gave them 
utterance." Such inspiration was not given 
alone to the apostles, or to those who were 
to write the New Testament. It is not to 
be supposed that all spoke with equal power 
and wisdom. The idea of different degrees 

I Eph. V. 17, 18. 



70 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

of inspiration has been scouted by some, and 
it has been regarded as something absolute 
and almost mechanical. The notion once 
prevailed that the sacred writers were mere 
amanuenses, who wrote at the dictation of 
the Spirit, and that the voice of the prophet 
was only that of a trumpet produced by di- 
vine breath. There are some signs of clearer 
and truer conceptions. The Hebrew vowel- 
points, the dots of the /'s, and the crosses of 
the /'s, are no longer held, in cultured cir- 
cles of thought, to be included among the 
necessary logical results of inspiration, and 
so are no longer accredited to the holy men 
of old. The advocates of verbal inspiration 
have quite disappeared from the ranks of bib- 
lical scholars. Some are still illogical enough 
to reject verbal inspiration, and to retain the 
theory of absolute inerrancy in the discourses 
and writings of the prophets and apostles, 
and a few reject inerrancy, and hold to ver- 
bal inspiration. If by verbal inspiration is 
meant that the indwelling Spirit prompted 
thought and utterance, and so had a suggestive 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 7 1 

but not controlling influence upon cnoice of 
words, the claim may be allowed ; for the inti- 
mate relation of thought and language seems 
to necessitate this. Such inspiration, how- 
ever, should not be pressed to mean anything 
more in the case of ancient prophets than of 
modern, unless the difference be in degree. 
In both cases the human and the divine fac- 
tors must be acknowledged in the conception 
and in the utterance of the prophetic message. 
Some advocates of plenary inspiration show the 
looseness of their logic and the weakness of 
their theory by the casual admission that in a 
few unimportant and non-essential points ab- 
solute inerrancy of prophetic writings and of 
other Scripture need not be maintained ; but 
the easier makeshift is to refer all discrepan- 
cies and inaccuracies to careless and venture- 
some scribes. Not only in the utterance of 
such truth as pertains to godliness and eternal 
life, but also in incidental and illustrative allu- 
sions of a scientific nature, in historical details, 
in exact chronology, in ethical teaching, and 
in theological conceptions, inspiration, as still 



^2 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

held by many, makes the ancient prophet 
and the sacred writer absolutely inerrant. A 
learned professor of Hebrew under the influ- 
ence of such a theory argued not long since 
in two columns of a religious journal that 
Methuselah probably died in the spring of 
the same year in the fall months of which 
occurred the universal Deluge — as though the 
ages of the antediluvians given in Genesis 
could furnish the data of exact chronology. 
Apparently he wanted to save Methuselah 
from the disgrace of having perished in the 
Flood. 

This notion of absolute infallibility or in- 
errancy of the ancient prophets and sacred 
writers must be cast out of the concept of 
inspiration. It is contradicted by the Scrip- 
tures themselves, and instead of being a safe- 
guard is a great hindrance to the progress of 
true Christianity, a fruitful source of infidel- 
ity. The church has been defending a foe 
within her own citadel. She has put the 
Bible as her standard of authority in the place 
of Christ, and subordinated reason to tradi- 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 73 

tional belief. It is far better to hold that 
the inspired prophets and writers used the 
historic, scientific, and other beliefs current 
in their times, and under the illumination of 
the Spirit saw a divine meaning in them all. 
Parable, allegory,^ poetry,^ tradition, legend, 
and myth were made to serve their pur- 
poses just as well as history. The object 
aimed at was simply to make known and 
impress moral and religious truth, and any 
form of thought whatever they were at liberty 
to choose as a fitting vehicle of expression. 
In fact, they did what modern prophets are 
doing from Sunday to Sunday, — they illustrate 
truth from every source, and try to point out 
God everywhere. 

There is really no reason for giving such 

1 The Book of Jonah. Cf. the interpretation of Professor 
Henry M. Harman in his '* Introduction," pp. 399, 400. Con- 
trast Professor Cornill's reverent appreciation of this prophecy, 
in his ** Prophets of Israel," pp. 170-173, with the flippant 
attempt to "joke a little," found in Kenan's " History of the 
People of Israel," vol. iii., pp. 417-420. 

2 The standing still of the sun and moon. Josh. x. 12-14. 
See the interpretation of Professor Milton S. Terry in "Bibli- 
cal Hermeneutics," pp. 540, 541. 



74 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

a definition to inspiration as to limit it to 
ancient times. God breathes his Spirit into 
the souls of chosen men in all ages. Great 
prophets stand out through all the Christian 
centuries, who have manifested a wonderful de- 
gree of it. Was not Savonarola inspired and 
a true prophet of God when he packed the 
great cathedral of Florence in the early morn- 
ing hours with eager listeners, to hear him de- 
nounce wickedness and oppression, and utter 
the impending judgment of God ? Whence 
came his moral earnestness and intensity of 
zeal for righteousness but from the Holy 
Spirit "i The peasants used to walk many 
miles, and sleep upon the steps of the cathe- 
dral, that they might listen to the voice of 
one popularly regarded as an inspired mes- 
senger of God. Was not Whitefield inspired, 
when he so preached to the multitudes in 
Moorfields that, as the result of one day's 
effort, a thousand were added to his church ? 
Was it Wesley alone, or the Spirit of the 
Lord God upon him, that sometimes drew 
thirty thousand to hear him in the natural 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 75 

amphitheatre at Gwennap ? Did anything of 
prophetic spirit and power accompany the 
preaching of Edwards and Finney as they 
went about arousing the churches and per- 
suading thousands to repent ? And did not 
Wendell Phillips closely resemble an old He- 
brew prophet when he startled the lethargic 
conscience of New England by his denunci- 
ations of African slavery on American soil ? 
If we deny that all these were inspired in 
any degree, it will be hard to convince the 
thoughtful that all the prophets from Amos 
to Malachi were inspired. Unless we recog- 
nize the essential elements of inspired proph- 
ecy in the best preaching of to-day, why do 
we pray and sing, — 

** Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire, 
Let us thine influence prove; 
Source of the old prophetic fire, 
Fountain of light and love." 

Are we only trying to charm ourselves with 
poetic analogies ? 

We need to rid ourselves of the notion that 



*j6 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

God did something more, something greater, 
for the Hebrew prophets than he is wilhng 
to do for his chosen messengers now, and to 
get ourselves saturated with this truth, — that 
v/e are living in the golden age of divine man- 
ifestations and spiritual power. The Comforter 
is ever at hand to supply all needed wisdom 
and might. We, too, may be and must be 
inspired to speak for him. We may know 
the exceeding greatness of his power. When 
we shall have prophetic and apostolic conse- 
cration, faith, and zeal, then we shall do even 
greater works than they. The thought that 
there is no essential difference between us 
and them, only a difference of conditions in 
many ways favorable to us, will, when once 
fully grasped, impel us to seek more ear- 
nestly the gift of prophecy, to get the mes- 
sage directly from God, and then to deliver 
it whenever and wherever we can. To us, 
as well as to Jeremiah, comes the exhorta- 
tion, " Call upon me, and I will answer thee, 
and show thee great and hidden things, that 
thou knowest not." The lapse of time has 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION, 7/ 

drawn its aureole around the heads of holy 
men of old, and has set them apart among 
the beatified or sanctified. We think, perhaps, 
the world will never see their like again ; 
but coming centuries will enshrine some of 
the more recent prophets, and build their 
tombs. 

The truth that God is giving an inspired 
revelation to the world in the best thoughts 
of religious minds needs to be emphasized. 
It is the content of what is called the Chris- 
tian consciousness. Such thought, says a 
recent writer, "in being human, is not neces- 
sarily non-divine. It is God's own thought, 
spoken out and revealed through human chan- 
nels. It is the divine word embodied in flesh. 
. . . We can draw no sharp distinctions be- 
tween the human mind discovering truth and 
the divine mind imparting revelation. It is 
this conviction of the ultimate unity of the 
best in man with the divine, which alone can 
justify the attempt to establish on reasonable 
grounds belief in the existence of God, or to 
prove the authenticity of any utterances pur- 



jZ SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

porting to come from him/'^ How can we 
recognize the utterance of God in the sacred 
Scriptures unless there is a divine revelation 
within us, by which all other revelation is to 
be judged ? Here appeal is made in vain to 
miracles. Miracles cannot substantiate an un- 
truth. At best they can only call attention 
to an utterance that claims to be from God, 
which then must be judged by its own in- 
trinsic worth. God is ever immanent in his 
people, and directly authenticates his revela- 
tion wherever it is perceived. Whether in 
reading the Psalms of the Old Testament or 
the hymns of the church, the writings of the 
apostles or the classic religious literature of 
the centuries, God's great confirmatory Amen 
to truth resounds in every Christian soul. 

One test of an inspired utterance is that it 
inspires somebody — not everybody, because 
some persons seem to be incapable of being 
inspired, and others will not yield themselves 
to divine influence. Some, doubtless, listened 
to Christ with hearts unmoved. Yet, as a 

1 Frederic Palmer's " Studies in Theologic Definition," p. 2^, 



PROPHETIC inspiration; 'jg 

rule, what comes from God will touch the 
divine that is left in human nature, and draw 
it upward to its native source. Judged by 
this test, inspired prophecy surely has not 
ceased. The words of Hebrew prophets never 
more inspired their hearers than the utter- 
ances of some of God's messengers in recent 
times. Let no one be misled here by loose 
definitions of inspiration as held by poets and 
enthusiasts. It means something more than 
emotional good feeling that may be aroused 
by fine rhetorical phrases and pathetic appeals, 
more than the magnetic thrill of excitement 
that follows bursts of natural eloquence, more 
than the enthusiasm of an hour that hurries 
men away to deeds of valor. It means divine 
impulse that accompanies truth spoken by 
lips touched with heavenly fire, unto nobler, 
holier, more unselfish lives. No inspiration 
was ever more genuine than this, or more 
needed than now. Its effects prove its divine 
origin. 

The objection may be made that any 
upstart may claim to be inspired, and set 



80 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

himself up as an authority in opposition to 
the sacred Scriptures, like Mohammed with 
his Koran, or the authors of the Mormon 
Bible. This objection is founded on the fail- 
ure to observe the distinction between in- 
spiration and revelation. The latter does not 
necessarily accompany the former. Let who- 
soever will claim the inspiration of the Divine 
Spirit ; but when any one offers a revelation 
as from God, let the claim be established 
by sufficient evidence. Let this pretended 
revelation be compared with other revelations 
acknowledged to be of God ; for God must 
be consistent with himself. Especially let us 
refer all such claims for decision to the su- 
preme revelation of truth and of God made 
in and by Jesus Christ. ^'The Spirit tells 
me thus, '' says the fanatic. Well, how hap- 
pens it that the Spirit never told that to 
any one else .? How happens it that it con- 
tradicts, perhaps, the teachings of the wisest 
and best in all ages t Has God allowed all 
the rest of the world to be deceived } Has 
he been waiting for this fanatic to enlighten 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. 8 1 

the world ? If indeed new truth has dawned, 
let its harmonious relationship to the whole 
system of truth be shown. Then all lovers of 
truth will confess its divine origin. This was 
the method of the Hebrew prophets. Their 
utterances did not contradict previous rev- 
elations, but made a broader application of 
the principles of truth and righteousness in- 
volved therein, and further unfolded the plans 
of God. Thus every successive prophet built 
upon foundations already laid. Our Founda- 
tion is still more secure. He who now claims 
to have a message from the Lord must show 
its harmony with the incarnate Word. 

It might be helpful to a just interpreta- 
tion of prophecy to note the effect of in- 
spiration upon style of discourse. Almost 
any one can speak well when his subject is 
as a fire shut up in his bones. All the 
faculties of his soul are then aroused, and 
the speaker is often said to outdo himself. 
Figures of speech are perfectly natural to 
impassioned utterance. There is some truth 
in the old thought that poetry is the re- 



82 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

suit of the divine afflatus. The Latin vates 
and the Greek 7rpo^7]Tr}s signify both poet 
and interpreter of the will of the gods. It 
is not strange that many of the Hebrew 
prophecies are poetic in thought and form, 
and of the highest order of eloquence. Reli- 
gious feeling and faith have always expressed 
themselves in sacred song. The real, practi- 
cal belief of the church can better be learned 
from its hymns than from its dogmas. The 
best theology of the Old Testament is found 
in the Psalms, and in the outbursts of the 
heart of Isaiah. The poetry and rhetoric of 
the Bible ought not to be interpreted as 
literal statements of dogmatic theology. Let 
the expositor who has no music in his soul 
pass over such passages, or rather let him 
first be filled with celestial harmonies and 
prophetic fire before beginning his task. 

It is the Holy Spirit that gives a mouth and 
wisdom that all adversaries cannot gainsay or 
resist. There is a natural and a Spirit-wrought 
eloquence that the schools cannot reproduce. 
There is also a studied imitation of the one 



PROPHETIC INSPIRATION, 83 

and of the other. Some seem to think that 
the gift of God, the convincing and persuasive 
power of the Spirit, may be purchased by- 
practising the arts of oratory. Rhetorical fin- 
ish of speech will always attract attention 
and please the listeners, but the preacher 
must have something more than these. He 
must have something to say, and a burning 
impulse to say it. Then thought shapes it- 
self in winged words. As said of Ulysses at 
the court of Troy, — 

**No mortal then would dare to strive with him 
For mastery in speech." 

He is an orator without knowing it. The 
truth gets home. The hearers lose thought 
of the speaker in earnest consideration of the 
message. This is real as distinguished from 
artificial eloquence. 



V. 
PREDICTIVE PROPHECY, 



It is no exaggeration to say that the prophetic Scriptures are at 
this moment inspiring more men, speaking to more men for God, 
giving more men larger and fresher conceptions of things divine and 
human, than at any previous age in the history of the church. This 
is only another way of saying that as a result of criticism the inspi- 
ration of the prophetic books has had freer play, and is working 
more powerfully and fruitfully than it has ever done before. If there 
has been loss, the gain has far outweighed the loss ; but it is by no 
means plain that the supposition should be granted. The old way 
of vindicating prophecy by pointing to the ruins, or want of ruins, at 
Babylon, and to the fishermen's nets at Tyre, had something painfully 
unproductive about it. It might be unobjectionable, but it never took 
one farther forward. . . . We owe criticism a debt for liberating, 
as it were, the spirit of prophecy, and giving it free course in the 

church." 

Professor James Dennev. 



V. 

PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. 

Thus far prophecy has been considered apart 
from the predictive element that is often but 
not always found therein. It is certain that 
the Hebrew prophets did foretell the future, 
and that many of their predictions had a strik- 
ing fulfilment. It has been the habit of those 
who write the evidences of Christianity to point 
out the minute correspondence between predic- 
tion and history ; and in the desire to strengthen 
the argument they have sometimes miscon- 
ceived the prophecy, finding prediction where 
it is not, and sometimes they have distorted 
the facts of history, claiming fulfilment where 
the claim must be denied. Thus a labored 
endeavor has been made to verify an assumed 
definition of prophecy as a writing of history 
beforehand. According to such interpreters, 
the main object of prophecy was to furnish to 

87 



88 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

far distant generations proofs of the divine ori- 
gin of the Scriptures. For example, two hun- 
dred years before the events foretold, Isaiah 
speaks comfortably to Jerusalem by declaring 
that her walls, yet to be laid in ruins, shall 
be rebuilt, and that the grandchildren of dis- 
tant posterity shall return from Babylonian 
captivity. Daniel has been made to declare 
centuries in advance the detailed vicissitudes 
of the Grecian and Roman Empires. There 
is indeed something ''painfully unproductive" 
in such interpretation of prophecy. It makes 
the prophet of little use to his own generation, 
and barren of spiritual results to his readers 
in distant ages. 

The critical study of the Bible has greatly 
modified such interpretation. The claim is 
made by many scholars that the first six 
books of the Old Testament are a late com- 
pilation of four leading documents, which 
were composed between 900 B.C. and 450 B.C. 
These documents rested upon earlier writings 
and oral traditions, going back to the time 
of Moses and beyond. Professor Briggs gives 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY, 89 

the names of seventy-nine European profess- 
ors of Old Testament exegesis, who are sub- 
stantially of accord in this view ; and he 
challenges any one to name an opposing au- 
thority in the great universities of Europe.^ 
The majority of American scholars in the 
same field of study agree with these Euro- 
pean interpreters. It is now, too, pretty well 
agreed among students of the Old Testa- 
ment that a large part of the Book of 
Isaiah was written during or just after the 
Babylonian exile, and that the Book of Dan- 
iel was composed in the time of Antiochus 
Epiphanes, about 165 B.C. The unanimity 
upon these points among scholars, rational- 
istic and evangelical, is scarcely less than that 
concerning the origin of the books of Moses. 
Thus many of the predictions contained in 
those parts of Scripture are such only in 
form. In fact, they are narrations of ancient 
history. The predictive form was sometimes 
chosen, as in Daniel, in order to furnish a 
fitting literary introduction to real prediction 
1 See **The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch," pp. 143, 144. 



go SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

concerning events immediately at hand, and 
concerning the Messianic kingdom. The pres- 
ent writer does not assume the infallibility 
of such interpretation, neither does he pre- 
sume to set at naught the studied opinions 
of such an array of competent judges. It 
is evident, however, that defenders of the 
Christian faith, if they would ground their 
arguments in admitted truth and so win their 
cause, must shift their base. The ruins of 
Tyre, Babylon, Nineveh, etc., will no longer 
furnish arguments of weight to questioning 
minds. If prophecy must be interpreted on 
a different basis, a favorite argument may 
be weakened, but much to compensate may 
be gained thereby. If we part with a mi- 
nute, predicted revelation of history, we may 
gain a better revelation of God; and to re- 
veal God was the main purpose of prophecy. 
There is no evidence that the history of 
the past has been miraculously revealed to 
any one. The sacred writers usually tell us 
the sources from which they derive their in- 
formation. Twenty-seven books now lost are 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. 9I 

cited in the Old Testament. The opening 
verses of Luke's Gospel acquaint us with his 
painstaking, historical research. '' It is not 
history, but the meaning of history, which is 
revealed to a prophetic soul."^ The proph- 
ets, knowing the meaning of the past, could 
in some measure predict the future. Their 
utterances were based upon the unchange- 
ability of God's moral government. The pur- 
pose of their predictions has been well termed 
ethico-religious ; i.e., to convey moral and reli- 
gious instruction, primarily to the people of 
their own times. They had seen cities and 
nations overthrown because of wickedness. It 
was a fixed factor of their theology that 
righteousness and wickedness receive their 
reward and punishment in this life. Their 
ignorance of a judgment after death, and of 
a future life based upon moral conduct in 
this, led them sometimes to err in interpret- 
ing the details of human history. Every sin, 
according to their theology, ought to be pun- 

^ Professor Ladd's ^'Doctrine of Sacred Scripture,'* vol. ii., 
p. 414. 



92 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

ished here. If the transgressor does not bear 
his penalty, then his descendants must, even 
to many generations. An illustration of this 
is shown in 2 Kings xxiii. 25, 26. The writer 
could not understand how Josiah, the ideal 
king, ''that turned to the Lord with all his 
heart, and with all his soul, and with all his 
might," could be defeated and slain in battle 
in the prime of life. He offers the expla- 
nation that the Lord's wrath was kindled 
against Judah because of the provocations of 
a previous king, Manasseh, who, although '' he 
shed innocent blood very much, till he had 
filled Jerusalem from one end to another,"^ 
died in peace, and was buried with his fathers. 
The theology of this writer is corrected by 
Jeremiah 2 and by Ezekiel.^ 

A similar insight into the moral govern- 
ment of God over the nations is expressed 
in the oft-quoted saying of an American 
statesman, "The longer I live, the more 
convincing proofs I see that God governs in 
the affairs of men.'' In the times of the 

1 2 Kings xxi. 16. ^ jer. xxxi. 29, 30. ^ Ezek. xviii. 2-4. 



I 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. 93 

Hebrew prophets, wickedness abounded, and 
therefore thrones and dynasties were of brief 
duration. Drawing ready inference from gen- 
eral principles, they were safe in foretelling 
the destruction of idolatrous and sinful na- 
tions, and the oppression and captivity of back- 
sliding Israel. Hence the prediction was of 
the nature of a promise or a threatening. Its 
fulfilment was conditioned on the moral atti_ 
tude of the people concerned. The principle 
is clearly stated by Jeremiah.^ '^ At what in- 
stant I shall speak concerning a nation, and 
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and 
to pull down, and to destroy it ; if that 
nation, against whom I have pronounced, 
turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil 
that I thought to do unto them. And at 
what instant I shall speak concerning a 
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build 
and to plant it ; if it do evil in my sight, 
that it obey not my voice, then I will repent 
of the good, wherewith I said I would bene- 
fit them.'^ The same principle of moral 

^ Jer. xviii. 7-10. 



94 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

government is applied to persons by Ezekiel.^ 
Both show the conditional nature of proph- 
ecy. Jonah's reluctant prophecy concerning 
the destruction of Nineveh is represented 
as unfulfilled because of changed conditions. 
There should be no surprise, then, at the 
fact, or reluctance to admit it, that some 
prophecies have been unfulfilled, and from 
the nature of the case never will be fulfilled. 
The principle underlying the prophecy remains 
forever true, but the application of the princi- 
ple in detail to future events was not always 
accurate. Amos declared that the Lord would 
"rise against the house of Jeroboam with the 
sword." ^ The context clearly shows that it 
was the thought of Amos that Israel would 
be conquered and led into captivity in that 
generation, but it was nearly forty years be- 
fore the prophecy was fulfilled. 

Jeremiah^ exiled in Egypt, and Ezekiel^ in 
Babylon, learning of the devastating march 
of Nebuchadnezzar's army, predicted the con- 

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 13-16. ^ Jer. xliii. 

2 Amos vii. 9 * Ezek, xxx.-xxxii. 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY, 95 

quest of Egypt by him, the destruction of 
her gods, and the dispersion of her people. 
^* There shall be no more a prince of the 
land of Egypt." " I will scatter the Egyp- 
tians among the nations, and will disperse 
them through the countries." These proph- 
ecies were not fulfilled according to the ex- 
pectations of Ezekiel. Shall we therefore 
deny his inspiration t The wonder is that 
hope and faith in God, and sure expecta- 
tion of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, with the 
destruction of all her foes, burned undimmed 
in his soul. Even Renan cannot withhold 
his admiration. *^In those years Ezekiel's 
passionate soul attained a height in which 
human nature has rarely maintained itself. 
The reconstruction of Jerusalem was so little 
doubted by this imperturbable believer that 
all his thoughts were occupied by plans, often 
eccentric, for arranging the future society in 
harmony with the spirit of the prophets, whose 
work he ardently continued." ^ 

Isaiah foretold that Damascus would be 

1 "History of the teople of Israel," vol. iii., p. 333. 



96 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

'^ taken away from being a city, and it shall 
be a ruinous heap/' ^ The spirit of his proph- 
ecy was fulfilled not long after in the capture 
of the city by Tiglath-pileser ; but Damascus 
was not destroyed, and is still standing. To 
say that the exact words of Isaiah will yet 
be fulfilled indicates an entire misunderstand- 
ing of the nature of inspired prediction. Eze- 
kiel, seeing the war-cloud arising in the East, 
predicts the immediate and complete destruc- 
tion of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. '' I will 
make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt 
be a place to spread nets upon ; thou shalt 
be built no more." Sixteen years later Eze- 
kiel corrects his own prediction, declaring 
that Nebuchadnezzar '^had no wages, nor his 
army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had 
served against it," although he besieged it 
thirteen years. The prophet gives him the 
land of Egypt, with her spoil, as a recompense 
for service against Tyre, ^^ and it shall be 
wages for his army."^ Some expositors feel 
bound to maintain that Nebuchadnezzar actu- 

1 Isa. xvii. I. 2 Cf. Ezek. xxvi. 1-14 with xxix. 17-20. 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. Q/ 

ally did capture insular Tyre, but this claim 
is denied by most recent historians.^ Others 
say the prediction was exactly fulfilled at the 

1 The older commentators and historians, following the un- 
authorized statement of Jerome, held that Ezekiel's prophecy- 
was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar. Rawlinson inclines to that 
view, yet leaves the matter in [doubt, saying, ** Tyre, if it fell 
at the end of its thirteen years' siege," etc. — *'The Fourth 
Monarchy," chap. viii. 

Sayce, in his *' Ancient Empires of the East," p. 192, de- 
clares that Tyre was not taken by Nebuchadnezzar. "After 
a siege of thirteen years he consented to treat with the Tyrian 
king, Ethbaal (B.C. 674), and was thus left free to turn his 
arms against Egypt." 

Von Ranke, in his "Universal History," vol. i., p. 89, very 
much doubts if insular Tyre was besieged. "It is nowhere 
recorded that Tyre was conquered." 

Friedrich Delitzsch, in " Geschichte Babylonians und Assyr- 
ians," p. 244, says, "The Chaldean king blockaded the city 
from the mainland but his efforts; according to all accounts, 
even that of Ezekiel, were fruitless." 

Vaihinger, in " Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia" (Art. Tyre), 
says it was "besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, but in vain." 

Duncker, in his "History of Antiquity," vol. iii., p. 353, 
Eng. Ed., says, " Ezekiel looked forward to the speedy success 
of the Babylonians, and the immediate fall of the great trading 
city. . . . Those prophecies were not fulfilled in their whole 
extent. The siege, after the capture of the old city, was no 
more than a blockade from the mainland." In a note he ac- 
knowledges, following a general statement of Berosus, that 



98 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

hands of Alexander the Great.^ But Ezekiel 
said that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Tyre, 
and had no thought of postponing the event 
three centuries. Let one have all the future 
for the fulfilment of the prediction, and one 
can safely foretell the complete destruction of 
almost any city on the face of the earth, as 
Macaulay pictured the ruins of London. The 
argument, based on minute fulfilment of pre- 
diction, creates more unbelief than it removes. 
It is not to be supposed that the prophets 
foresaw the details of the future more accu- 
rately than they were able to learn those of 
the past. Minute errors, either of history or 

Tyre, ** though not captured, was subjugated by the Babylo- 
nians." 

Professor Smend of Basel, in his *' Commentary on Ezekiel," 
says, *'The assertion of the church fathers is now defended by 
few," and after reviewing the historical evidences concludes 
thus, '^We must therefore abide by the confession of Ezekiel." 
He refers to Ezek. xxix. 21, where the prophet is promised an 
"opening of the mouth; " i.e., the failure of his former proph- 
ecy had rendered him speechless against reproaches. He was 
to make a new one that would restore his rep itation. 

See also Kendrick's ^'Phoenicia," p. 385. 

^ Hopkins's ** Evidences of Christianity," p. 333. 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. 99 

prediction, do not invalidate the substantial 
truth of their writings. The evidence is clear 
that they were wonderfully acute discerners 
of the signs of the times. Such spiritual dis- 
cernment is the result of inspiration, and be- 
longs in some measure to the pure in heart 
of all times. Let it be frankly admitted that 
Isaiah xlvi. i, 2, was not literally fulfilled, that 
the gods of Babylon were not overthrown or 
carried into captivity, but were rather rein- 
stated in authority by Cyrus at the conquest 
of that city ; admit, too, that the Assyrian 
host did not approach Jerusalem at the time 
or in the manner indicated in Isaiah x. 24- 
32.^ These are only poetic colorings. Shall 
the prophet be allowed no use of his imagi- 
nation } 

Ancient prophecy took its form from contem- 
porary events and conditions. War frequently 
meant the extermination of the conquered. 
Extravagant phraseology was used both in 
history and in prophecy. In the inscription 

1 See George Adam Smith on Isaiah in Expositor's Bible, 
vol. ii., p. 178 f., and vol. i., p. 170 f. 



100 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

on the famous Moabite stone, King Mesha 
declares that he destroyed Israel *^with an 
everlasting destruction," yet Israel soon after 
became his conqueror. Joel represents the 
surrounding nations, Phoenicia, Egypt, and 
Edom, assembled in the valley of Jehoshaphat 
for battle. The issue is a complete triumph 
of Jerusalem with prodigies in the heavens. 
'^The sun and the moon shall be darkened, 
and the stars shall withdraw their shining." 
'' Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall 
be a desolate wilderness," while Judah shall 
abide forever. This is the poetic way of say- 
ing that God is ever the defence of his people. 
The imagery is drawn from the customs of 
the times. The prophecy has never been lit- 
erally fulfilled. It is probable that Joel him- 
self did not expect such a fulfilment.^ For 
us to expect a literal fulfilment in the future 
is due to inability to see through the figurative 
and symbolical to the spiritual. The spirit of 
the prophecy has progressive illustration in 

1 Joel iii. 12 ff. Jehoshaphat (Yahveh judges) may be used 
symbolically, without reference to the valley of Kidron. 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. lOI 

all ages. The true people of God are triumph- 
ing, and his enemies are being overthrown. 
The same spirit of prophecy in Faber prompted 
him to write, — 

** For right is right, since God is God; 
And right the day must win; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

By insisting upon exact fulfilment of pre- 
diction, and by endeavoring to find it in his- 
tory, expositors have gotten themselves and 
their readers into labyrinths of perplexity, in 
which some delight to wander about. No 
two seem to be following the same thread. 
A few have claimed to see the way out of the 
mazes, - and have appointed the year and the 
day for the grand consummation when all 
prophecies shall have been literally fulfilled. 
All such interpretations have brought ridicule 
upon their believers, and injury to the Chris- 
tian religion. Yet immediately others would 
seek to recast the predictions, and to fit there- 
to other historical events. Thus the unprofit- 
able work goes on. Calvin doubtless had 



102 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

good cause for prohibiting the interpreting 
of the Apocalypse in the churches of Geneva. 
We cannot help thinking that the difficulty 
lies in an entire misconception of the nature 
of prediction, as though it were based upon 
a vision of the future as a long-extended pan- 
orama. A better clew to its interpretation 
will be found if we base it upon the prophet's 
spiritual insight into the events of past and 
on-going history, upon his mighty faith in 
God as the moral Ruler over all, and upon his 
expectation of speedy fulfilment. A study of 
contemporaneous and immediately succeeding 
history will best determine the meaning of 
prophecy. Historical and archaeological in- 
vestigations will often, too, fix the time of 
the prophecy itself. The critical apparatus 
for a study of ancient history has been some- 
what deficient till recent times, and this may 
be why better known events of later history 
have been so often fitted to the words of an- 
cient seers. It is deplorable to still see the 
maps, charts, and short-lived publications that 
profess to reveal the secrets of the future, 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. I03 

even to the day and the hour, that Christ de- 
clared himself ignorant of. 

The prophet has been aptly called the storm 
petrel of the world's history. His spirituality 
makes him a discoverer of the signs of the 
times. He ascends the watchtower, and sur- 
veys the movements of the nations.^ Baby- 
lon will surely fall before the already mov- 
ing chariots and hosts of Sargon. He looks 
again over Edom. The night of silence rests 
upon it. He cannot now see the end. The 
messenger must return again. The inspired 
seer does not profess to know everything. 
Of some things he feels sure enough to 
speak out. Babylon, though captured, rose 
to supremacy. Another watchman foresees 
her troops leading away Judah into captivity. 
Faith long foretells the return of a remnant, 
and when Cyrus is already seen conquering 
all before him fixes more definitely the time. 
In like manner New Testament prophets 
plainly see the forces in operation that must 
lead to the destruction of Jerusalem, and often 

1 Isa. xxi. 



I04 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

speak of that event, from Matthew to Revela- 
tion. With that event was associated either 
typically or literally the end of the world or 
age. The best commentary upon such pas- 
sages is a full history of the times aided by 
a poetic imagination. Some have interpreted 
prophecy just as they have parable, insisting 
that every minute particular, every descrip- 
tive phrase, all poetic coloring, must have 
a definite historical counterpart. Such are 
bound to have an illustration go on all fours, 
and they bewilder and confound the faith of 
simple souls. 

In contending for the supernatural element 
in prophecy, it is not wise to deny the nat- 
ural, nor to insist upon the unnatural. The 
explanatory cause need not be greater than 
the effect. Revelation of truth is by means 
of the natural, intuitive power of the soul, 
plus the special operation of the Holy Spirit. 
This special, or so-called supernatural, action 
of the Spirit does not differ in its nature 
from his ordinary action. Here the natural 
and the supernatural meet. The supernatural 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. 105 

may be called in such case an intensification 
of the natural. Thus may be interpreted the 
statement of Max Mtiller, *' History teaches 
us that nothing is so natural as the super- 
natural.'' Whether an event be supernatural 
or natural may depend upon one's point of 
view. The power of foreseeing events in the 
near future may be quite natural to some souls 
when filled with the divine Spirit. The seem- 
ingly miraculous powers of the witch of Endor 
are fully explained by the phenomena of mod- 
ern hypnotism. Balaam's vision, ''having his 
eyes open," ^suggests the state now well known 
as waking trance. The ecstasy of Saul has 
many modern parallels. To say that the 
human mind in certain persons and states has 
no power of foretelling the future in an in- 
explicable manner is more than can now be 
safely affirmed. ^ Would it not be worthier of 
God, if we should be forced to conclude that 
he awakened in the ancient seers dormant 
and unknown powers, rather than momen- 

1 Num. xxiv. 16. 

2 See Van Norden's *' Psychic Factor," pp. 103-110. 



I06 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

tarily gave a new power and then withdrew 
it ? Let God have the glory, whether we 
can explain his action or not. He moves in 
nature no less than in the supernatural. He 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; 
and if we can better find out his uniform 
methods of action so as to explain some events 
hitherto considered miraculous, then those 
events become more rather than less divine 
and wonderful. Thus God is glorified the 
more, and the faith of his people is strength- 
ened. Not all his ways in either the past or 
the present have been explained, but the con- 
viction is growing that the supernatural would 
appear perfectly natural if we could attain 
God's point of view. And if by the super- 
natural is meant his direct action, then we 
affirm that God is everywhere and always 
directly active ; and this is the stupendous 
miracle of the universe. 

From what has thus far been written, it 
may be seen also that the predictive element 
of prophecy is not a thing altogether of the 
past. A great faith is always predictive. 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY. I07 

The coming One, who shall rule in righteous- 
ness, is always at hand to him who believes 
in God. In a very, very little while he will 
surely come ; he will not tarry. Faith is 
spiritual foresight. It is the confident assur- 
ance one feels concerning things hoped for, 
the inward demonstration of things not seen. 

*^ Far into distant worlds she pries, 
And brings eternal glories near." 

Faith is based upon God in us, rather than 
upon any specific promises of the Bible. 
Have faith in God, and glorious predictions 
will fill the soul. This makes the optimist, 
who sees through temporary defeats to final 
victory. This moved Whittier long before the 
day of abolition of slavery to write : — 

** I have not seen, I may not see, 

My hopes for man take form in fact; 
But God will give the victory 

In due time ; in that faith I act." 

Have we not here a modern prediction .^ 
and did its fulfilment, even before the ex- 
pected time, prove the prediction to have been 



I08 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

inspired of God ? Nay, that is not the high- 
est proof. We know that stanza is the in- 
spiration of the divine Spirit from its godlike 
character ; and though slavery were to last 
ten thousand years, every true believer would 
confidently expect the complete fulfilment of 
Whittier's prediction. We have a *'Thus 
saith the Lord " for it in our own souls. 
Religious poetry in all ages is full of such 
prediction. 

The conscientious person feels the domin- 
ion of a righteous God, or he is convinced, 
as Matthew Arnold would say, of an *' endur- 
ing power, not ourselves, that makes for right- 
eousness. " To affirm the personality of the 
" power " seems to us more religious and 
more philosophical. The hand of God, or the 
reign of righteousness, have it as thou wilt, 
is seen also by this conscientious person in 
national affairs. He rightly infers that the 
same Being or '^ power" that works in him 
is also working in others. The Puritan 
fathers were guided by God to American 
shores. They so felt and affirmed. Can any 



PREDICTIVE PROPHECY, IO9 

one who has prophetic insight deny it ? 
God overruled in the Revolutionary and Civil 
Wars. All admit it. So common is the rec- 
ognition of God in our national history, that 
there is stamped upon our coins, '' in God 
we trust.'' Some time before the unifica- 
tion of Germany and of Italy, a European 
statesman — was it Mazzini ? — predicted the 
rise of three great monarchies, and that these 
would be the precursors of great republics. 
The first part of the prediction has been 
fulfilled in Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hun- 
gary. Who that reads the signs of the times 
doubts the ultimate fulfilment of the second 
part } Would any prophet endanger his repu- 
tation were he now to foretell the downfall of 
the Turkish Empire, and the division of the 
same among European powers 1 A states- 
manlike acquaintance with diplomacy might 
enable one to tell in some details the man- 
ner of the downfall ; and if such prediction 
were fulfilled in general, and not in all its par- 
ticulars, would it be said that it was destitute 
of spiritual insight, and was the utterance of 



no SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

a false prophet ? The missionary enthusiast 
declares that the kingdoms of this world will 
soon become the kingdom of the Lord and 
of his Christ. The faith of the seer of Pat- 
mos was so great that his soon was now. 
What makes the modern prophet so confi- 
dent of the speedy triumph of Christianity? 
Is it because he believes the '^promises*' of 
ancient prophets ? Is it not rather because 
he feels an indorsement of their faith made 
by the voice of God within him ? One must 
be himself a prophet in order to interpret 
prophecy, just as the poet alone understands 
poetry, and the artist art. 



I 



VI. 

MESSIANIC PROPHECY, 



" The prophets anticipated the early dawn of Messianic times. 
The energy of their faith and hope brought the blessing exceedingly 
near, and it seemed just on the borders of their historical horizon. 
In this way, and not from the visionary nature of the revelation 
given to them, it is to be explained that the blessings of the Mes- 
sianic times are always the cheerful background of the picture in 
which they portray coming judgments. 

Professor Eduard Riehm. 



VI. 
MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 
Without it life would be dreary indeed, if not 
insupportable. Man is by nature progressive, 
always looking forward to something better. 
He is contented only as he is advancing. To 
sit down and content one's self in the present, 
with no thought of effort for improvement, is 
the mark of an ignoble mind. To cease one's 
longings and strivings for a better state evi- 
dences loss of faith and utter discouragement. 

Hope comes to the rescue especially in ad- 
versity. When one's condition is less fortu- 
nate or desirable than in the past, distress 
seizes the soul. No ease till the former pros- 
perity has been regained or enhanced. Para- 
dise must be re-entered, since no home can 
be found outside. Dante represents Franccsca 

as saying: — 

113 



114 SPEAKIXG FOR GOD. 

''Xo greater pain 
Than to recall the time of happiness 
In midst of misery.*' i 

That saying may be true in hopeless *' In- 
ferno," but in this life something whispers 
in nearly every mournful heart the song of 
Byron : — 

*' Hours splendid as the past may still be thine, 
And bless thy future as thy former day." 

Hope shines brightest when her lamp is 
trimmed by religion. Expectation of earthly 
good may be extinguished. A cheerless lot 
may be patiently endured by making a virtue 
of necessity. Then it is that hope shines 
beyond the limits of the present life, and re- 
veals the glories of the eternal world. Hope 
must have a basis. If that cannot be found in 
man or circumstances, God is her firm founda- 
tion. All else may fail. He remaineth sure. 
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul .^ Hope 
thou in God," and in no other. This hope in 

1 '* Xessun major dolor e 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miseria'' — '* Inferno," v. 120-123. 



MESSIAAUC PROPHECY. II5 

God has always been the stay of the prophet 
and reformer. He feels himself to be in part- 
nership with God. His cause must succeed be- 
cause it is a righteous one. No matter how 
many foes, what difficulties and temporary 
reverses, what false friends and faint-hearted 
followers, his watchword is Im-manuel, ^' God 
with us." It is God within us who in- 
vites to better days. No man can ever be 
hopeless if God is enshrined in his soul. 
Delay only intensifies his expectation of good. 
He grasps the future as though it were pres- 
ent. The goal is ever in view, and shuts 
out surrounding scenes. This element of the 
spirit of prophecy is common to all who 
have not lost faith in God and righteous- 
ness, and is most conspicuous in those who 
live nearest to God. Among the Hebrew 
prophets, Isaiah displays this hope in God in a 
special degree. Nothing daunts him, — neither 
the black war-cloud lowering over the north- 
ern horizon, nor the unnumbered forest of 
Assyrian spears in full view. God will raise 
up a deliverer, and defend or redeem his chosen 



Il6 SPEAKING FOR GOD 

people. National scourges always meant chas- 
tisement to him, never destruction. His song 
was always that of the Christian pilgrim, '' De- 
liverance will come." To him Jerusalem was 
inviolable, and the throne of the house of David 
could not be overthrown. Even the wicked 
and faithless Ahaz could not destroy the 
faithfulness of God, and so he sings: — 

''To us a child of hope is born, 
To us a son is given. 
The Wonderful, the Counsellor, 
The mighty Lord of heaven."^ 

Since this hope is based in God as the 
source of all good, it naturally grows into 
a longing desire and trustful expectation 
of finding out God, whom to know is the 
highest good conceivable. The prayer of 
the devout soul has always been, '^ I beseech 
thee, show me thy glory," and *' O that I 
knew where I might find him ! " This long- 
ing has been the prophecy of its own ful- 
filment. Desire awakens hope ; hope kindles 
faith; faith soon becomes conviction; convic- 

1 Cf. Isa. ix. 6, 7 ; xi. i-io. 



k 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY, 11/ 

tion expresses itself in ''It shall come to 
pass." This seems to be the natural basis of 
Messianic prophecy, which among the He- 
brews became clearer and clearer in its out- 
lines until the fulness of time had come. 
We have no sympathy with that style of in- 
terpretation that finds a definite prediction 
of Christ on almost every page of the Old 
Testament. The saying concerning the '' seed 
of the woman/' whenever it originated, was 
uttered of the human race, and afterward 
pressed into service by the theologians. It 
would be better not to build any further 
upon Jacob's mention of ''Shiloh''^ till the 
meaning of the word is better ascertained. 
If a prophecy of the Messiah can be found 
there, no difficulty will be experienced in 
finding it almost anywhere else. It is as 
easy to prove that Judah still retains the 
sceptre, as that he retained it till the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. Jewish commen- 
tators with hearts full of Messianic longings, 
and Christian theologians hunting for proof- 

1 Gen. xlix. lo. 



Il8 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

texts, have seen in Balaam's Star ^ a prediction 
of Christ. Arguments based on such passages 
of Scripture may be convincing to those who 
are already convinced, or they may lead the 
thoughtful into scepticism, seeing how far 
pressed the theologians are to find evidences 
of prediction. The argument founded on Mes- 
sianic prophecy has no need of such feeble 
support. The expectation of the Messiah is 
abundantly expressed in the Old Testament. 
His nature and ofRce-work become clearer 
with the progress of revelation. The condi- 
tion of the Jewish nation furnished the chan- 
ging types under which he was foretold. 
Until the monarchy was overthrown he was 
expected as a king of the Davidic line, who 
should restore and extend the dominions of 
Israel, and who himself, or in the persons 
of his rightful successors, should rule in 
righteousness for ever and ever. All desir- 
able things were pictured under his sway. 
Divine names and attributes were given 
him much the same as they were by the 

1 Num. xxiv. 17. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY, II9 

neighboring heathen nations to their kings. ^ 
The writers of sacred poetry especially sought 
to glorify the Messiah in words strictly ap- 
plicable only to Deity. Such expressions 
cannot with fairness be pressed into ser- 
vice as proof-texts of the divinity of Christ. 
The sacred writers had in mind the exalta- 
tion of the soon-expected, anointed king 
rather than the humiliation and incarnation 
of God. 

After the overthrow of the Jewish mon- 
archy hope still looked for a Deliverer, but 
now he is represented under the type sug- 
gested by the condition of Israel during the 
Babylonian captivity. He is the Suffering 
Servant of Jehovah. He is to redeem and 
save his people, not now by military con- 
quest, but by endurance of pain and oppres- 
sion. God's chastening hand is upon him. 
He suffers, not because of his own sins, 
but for the sins of Israel. He is a willing 
sacrificial victim, bearing the iniquities of 
many, and by self-sacrificing love he wins 

1 See Che3me and also Smith on Isa. ix. 6. 



120 SPEAKIXG FOR GOD. 

the spoils of conquest. Some see in the 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah only a personifi- 
cation of Israel crushed down bv cruel 
bondage. The description is true to histor- 
ical facts, but prophetic faith looks though 
passing history to a Deliverer made like 
unto his brethren. The prophet of the 
exile sees a fulfilment of old prophecies of 
a royal IMessiah even in the Gentile Cyrus, 
the Lord's anointed,^ yet this is not the com- 
plete fulfilment of the ^Messianic hope. The 
hope expands into something different and 
better. The prophet sees that Israel needs 
deliverance from sin more than from foreign 
oppression, and faith says God will surely 
supply the need. How.^ The disease sug- 
gests the remedy. Only a sufferer can take 
awav sufferins:. There must be a sacrifice 
for the expiation of sin. Hence the form 
of the prophecy. 

After the exile the priesthood was exalted 
above the monarchy. In Joshua, the high 
priest Zechariah sees the promised Branxh^ 

1 Isa. xlv. I. 2 Zech. vi. 11-13 : Isa. xi. i : Jer. xxiii. 5. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 121 

of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The offices of priest 
and of king seem to be combined in the 
prophet's thought after the patriarchal man- 
ner, for "\\^ shall be a priest upon his throne." 
National prosperity, introduced and followed 
by righteousness, purity, and the outpouring 
of the Spirit, mark his sway. It is the same 
old Messianic hope, though its form of ex- 
pression has changed because of changed con- 
ditions. 

After the priests had become corrupt, 
Malachi, following the phraseology of Isaiah, 
predicts the coming of the Angel ^ of the 
Covenant, who shall purify the sons of Levi. 
Still later, when Antiochus Epiphanes had 
corrupted the priesthood to such extent that 
the altar of Zeus was set up in the temple 
itself, and all hope in kings and priests alike 
was lost, a prophet predicted the speedy ad- 
vent of the Messianic kingdom in the sym- 
bolic form of one like a '^ Son of man," to 
whom is given universal and everlasting do- 
minion. ^ Thus again the Messianic hope is 

1 Mai. iii. i ; Isa. xl. 3 ; Ixiii. 9. 2 j^^n. vii. 13, 14. 



122 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

expressed in terms suggested by and suited 
to the needs of the passing time. 

Filled with faith and longing as they were, 
it could not be otherwise than that to him 
should all the prophets give witness. Each, 
according to the signs of the times, expected 
his speedy appearing. It is a mistake to 
suppose that any one of them in prophetic 
vision looked through a vista of centuries to 
a fulfilment of the present longing and press- 
ing need of himself and of his people. What 
comfort and strength would the prophet afford 
his hearers by telling them that the Deliv- 
erer would come in some distant age.^ Such 
a conception makes prophecy too useless and 
tantalizing to be inspired of God. The Mes- 
siah was in their faith always close at hand. 
In this particular they were mistaken, not 
knowing what manner of time the Spirit 
of Christ which was in them did signify. 
Though many trustful, wistful souls were dis- 
appointed, yet the faith that God would visit, 
redeem, and exalt his people grew stronger 
and clearer, the conception of the Messiah 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 1 23 

being modified and enlarged by ever chan- 
ging circumstances, and by better revelations 
of God and of their own needs. Messianic 
prophecy was not confined to the holy men 
whose writings have come down to us ; it 
was shared in some degree by all devout 
souls in Israel 

The hope, longing, faith, expectation, ex- 
pressed in Messianic prophecy were and are 
the direct inspiration of God. The object of 
the saint's desire is God and his kingdom of 
righteousness. This is why the prophets in 
all ages are constantly foretelling the imme- 
diate coming of that kingdom, and painting 
its glories and beauties in changing styles 
of expression. The real Messiah was differ- 
ent from their expectation, and yet larger than 
their fondest hopes. Combining all excel- 
lences and good offices in himself, he easily 
suggests comparisons between himself and 
whatever of wisdom, greatness, and goodness 
may be seen in prophets, priests, kings, and 
holy men of old. We may call such men 
types and predictions if we will; since in har- 



124 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

mony with God's eternal law of progress every 
good, wise, noble, holy man is a prophecy of 
a still better one to come. Even the revela- 
tion of all ideal excellences in Jesus, the Mes- 
siah, has not quieted this ever-living inspiration 
in the souls of men. Since the longing of 
humanity is satisfied in him, and fancy can 
suggest nothing better. Christians have from 
the beginning been watching for his second 
coming. Hardly was he out of sight before 
prayers and preparations began to be made 
for his return. Just how he shall return, or 
when, the saints are not agreed ; but that he 
is surely coming in some way better than has 
been dreamed, no lover of Christ can doubt. 
That his kingdom is to fill the whole world, 
and to be an everlasting kingdom, is a convic- 
tion breathed into the soul of every one who 
is in harmony with God. 

But how and when shall it be t The proph- 
ets are still searching. Some, instead of look- 
ing for an answer within and around them- 
selves, as true, original prophets have always 
done, go back to the fading colorings and 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 12$ 

imagery of Old Testament seers for indica- 
tions of his appearing. The descriptions of 
his regal splendor dazzle and enchant them. 
They want a king that is altogether too earthly. 
With literal interpretations of poetic phraseol- 
ogy they look for the fulfilment of what was 
Ions; a2:o in spirit fulfilled. That the Hebrews 
should long to see the throne of David per- 
manently re-established at Jerusalem, and the 
conquest and conversion of the Gentile nations, 
is all very natural ; how Christian believers 
of the nineteenth century can cherish such 
longings it is difficult to understand. Such 
a localized Christ surely would afford little 
satisfaction to world-wide Christianity. 

The Christ who is to come must surely sat- 
isfy the longings and needs of the spiritually 
minded. He met the requirements of human- 
ity in his first coming ; he will do so in his 
second. What kind of a Christ does the pres- 
ent world need } The answer to this question 
shaped ancient Messianic prophecies. Let it 
shape the hopes and convictions of to-day. 

Before his departure Jesus promised to come 



126 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

again, and to make his abode with and in his 
followers, so that the Father and the Son 
might be manifested through them unto the 
world. He declared that the revelation of 
himself in them would be the satisfaction of 
their hearts, as well as the continuous and 
convincing manifestation to the world of him- 
self in his true nature. '' I in them, and thou 
in me, that the world may know that thou 
hast sent me.'* This indwelling of the liv- 
ing Christ is described by New Testament 
writers as a fact powerfully revealed in con- 
sciousness. Paul felt himself so identified with 
him as to say, ^' I have been crucified with 
Christ ; it is no longer I that live, but Christ 
that liveth in me.'' He was like the man who 
said he was hanged with John Brown. He 
Was so much in sympathy with John Brown's 
views and aims, he loved him so much, that 
when that old hero swung from the gallows his 
friend felt as though the halter were around 
his own neck. So Paul constantly bore about 
in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, al- 
ways delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 12/ 

It was this self-crucifixion that enabled him 
to so powerfully preach Christ crucified. One 
must be like Christ, must in some measure 
be a Christ, in order to know him and reveal 
him unto others. 

The disciples did not simply remember Jesus, 
and cherish him in their affections. They held 
communion with him. The Comforter revealed 
him unto them. They felt his presence. They 
partook of his holiness, wisdom, and power. 
In some degree they reproduced him, so that 
they worthily bore the name of Christians — 
Christ-men. Everywhere they went he was 
manifested in a most practical manner. Those 
who believed on him, as preached by and re- 
vealed in others, received a like revelation in 
themselves. This more and more transformed 
them into his image, and enlarged their ca- 
pacity of knowing him. Thus the Spirit of 
Christ was incarnated in a new and wider 
sense than before his death. They were not 
mere imitators of Jesus, after the manner of 
stage-players. They had not to constantly re- 
mind themselves of the role they were play- 



128 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

ing. They put on Christ not as a mask, 
concealing their own unchristlikeness. They 
were baptized into him. Christ dwelt in them, 
the hope of glory. To put on Christ meant 
with them most intimate union and commu- 
nion. To express the thought in modern phra- 
seology, we should have to say, they and Christ 
were all one. 

It pleased the Father to reveal his Son in 
them, yet in such a manner as to nourish in 
them a longing to know him still better. 
Let no one fancy some strange miracle of rev- 
elation like an outward vision. That would 
be too much like knowing him according to 
the flesh. Doubtless in certain moods their 
thoughts of him were objectified, so that they 
seemed to see his form and hear his voice. 
Such subjective visions are real in some 
experiences to-day. They are not miracles, 
but conform to mental laws, and are peculiar 
to certain temperaments. Such experiences 
are transitory, and are not of highest value. 
Christ can be revealed in pure thought as well 
as in imagination. The truths concerning him 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 1 29 

can be so illuminated by the Spirit, and made 
so real, that his presence is felt. To see is 
not to know. One may behold with the eyes, 
and yet totally misunderstand. The eyes of the 
understanding may be enlightened unto the 
full knowledge of Christ. ^ The word tmto here 
means ever pressing forward in the knowledge 
gained, and iozvard a complete knowledge. 
This implies devout meditation and study. 
One cannot neglect the recorded truth con- 
cerning Christ, and still expect a miraculous 
manifestation of him in ansv/er to lazy prayers. 
If we were more anxious to reveal Christ 
to others, we should know him more clearly 
ourselves. To do this we must be like him. 
Beings totally unlike can never know each 
other. Their attempts to form conceptions 
of each other would be only partial or mag- 
nified reproductions of themselves, or some 
notions strange, monstrous, and false. Ac- 
cording to the popular idea, angels are great 
human beings with wings. Ezekiel's cher- 
ubim were strange combinations of man and 

1 Cf. Eph. i. 17, 18, and Col. ii. 2. 



I30 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

beast, suggested, perhaps, by Assyrian sculp- 
tures seen during his captivity. To know an 
angel, one must be angelic. To know or un- 
derstand a soldier is not to behold him, and 
listen to his narratives of battles, marches, 
and tent-life. This gives some truth, mingled 
with many misconceptions. To know a sol- 
dier, one must be a soldier. To understand 
and appreciate an artist, one must be an 
artist, in spirit at least. In other words, not 
imagination, but experience well interpreted 
in thought, is the source of true knowledge. 
To know Christ, one must have experience 
of his forgiving, saving, comforting, strength- 
ening, sanctifying grace, made real and inter- 
preted in thought by the Spirit who guides 
into such truth. 

Some are longing for Christ to come in 
his kingdom, that they may see him as he is, 
and reign with him. Royalty, power, miracu- 
lous display, the inheritance of his riches, 
— these things they associate with his com- 
ing ; for in these they wish to share. It is 
the same old worldly expectation of Judaism. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. I3I 

Isaiah's type of the Suffering Servant satisfies 
but few. To know him and the fellowship of 
his sufferings, and to be made conformable 
unto his death, is not the aspiration of the 
many. Yet it may be that the Christ most 
needed is still the patient Sufferer who 
bears in sympathy and helpfulness the woes 
of humanity. To realize the presence of 
Christ, he must be sought and received in 
sympathizing love as he was in his humility, 
and still is in lowly condescension, rather than 
as fancy may conceive that he will be in his 
millennial splendor. The world needs to know 
and reveal him as Friend and Saviour rather 
than as Judge and King. His kingdom is not 
of this world. 

Such an appearing of Christ in the persons 
and lives of his followers is the world's pres- 
ent greatest need; for this alone can banish 
its sins, soothe its sorrows, cure its woes, lift 
its burdens, lighten its toils, and bring in 
heaven upon earth. God wants to manifest 
himself not in one Man alone, but in all men ; 
and the pattern of his manifestation in us has 



132 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

been given in the historic Christ. A loving, 
prayerful study of him as revealed in the Gos- 
pels will by the manifestation of the Spirit 
reveal him in us. We must know him as he 
was before we shall be prepared to see him 
as he is, and as he shall be. In an increasing 
number of prophetic souls, there seems to be 
a longing corresponding to the world's pres- 
ent need. Many are praying, '' Come, Lord 
Jesus," who desire not so much to see him in 
the clouds of heaven as to possess him in the 
soul, and to be like him here. Cease search- 
ing ancient prophecies to learn the manner 
of his distant coming, and find a prophecy in 
your own longings, and in the groaning prayer 
of the world about you. He stands at the 
door waiting to come in and sup with you. 

If the world needs such a reappearing of 
Christ, then since the world is ruled by in- 
finite wisdom, love, and power, it will surely 
get what it needs. The manifestation of the 
sons of God, for which creation in earnest 
expectation waits, is drawing near. Divinity 
is shining forth more and more clearly in 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 1 33 

Christlike lives. The coming man, who is 
to be a habitation of God through the Spirit, 
is thus to reproduce the Christ of prophecy. 
As all types found their fulfilment in Jesus, 
so also they will be fulfilled in his followers. 
While ancient prophets emphasized some spe- 
cial feature of the Messianic character, they 
did not entirely leave out of their picture 
other features portrayed by previous proph- 
ecies. Isaiah's Suffering Servant is all the 
more a King because of his sufferings, and 
Christ was never more royal than when 
crowned with thorns. The anointed Prince 
is also priestly mediator between man and 
God, and by self-sacrifice bears the sins of 
many. Both King and Priest receive the 
Spirit of wisdom and understanding, and thus 
exercise the office of prophet. As Prophet 
speaking the truth of God, as Priest in sacri- 
ficial mediation, as King ruling in righteous 
helpfulness, Christ is always the Suffering 
Servant of God and humanity. And when 
the hopes of ancient seers shall have been 
realized, and all God's people shall be proph- 



134 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

ets speaking for him, they will also be priests 
in self-sacrificing mediation, and princes of 
righteousness and peace. The only way of 
attaining unto all this is through service. 
Whosoever would be the greatest must be the 
servant of all. 



\ 



VII. 
THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER, 



While the Old Testament says, Attend to conduct I the New 
Testament says, Attend to the feelings and disf>ositions -whence con- 
duct proceeds ! And as attending to conduct had very much degen- 
erated into deadness and formahty, attending to the springs of 
conduct was a revelation, a revival of intuitive and fresh perceptions, 
a touching of morals with emotion, a discovery of religion similar to 
that which had been effected when Israel, struck with the abiding 
power, not of man's causing, which makes for righteousness, and filled 
with joy and aw^e by it, had in the old days named God the Eterjial. 
Man came under a new dispensation, and made with God a second 
covenant. — Matthew Arnold's " Literature and Dogma," p. 8i. 

Which is the solid and sensible man, which understands most, 
which lives most ? Compare a Methodist day-laborer with some dis- 
solute, gifted, brilliant grandee, who thinks nothing of him ! — but 
the first deals successfully with nearly the whole of Hfe, while the 
second is all abroad in it. Compare some simple and pious monk at 
Rome with one of those frivolous men of taste whom we have all 
seen there ! — each knows nothing of what interests the other ; but 
which is the more vital concern for a man : conduct, or arts and an- 
tiquities ? — Idem^ p. 213. 



i 



VII. 

THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 

No phrase of Scripture better character- 
izes the Hebrew prophets than this: *'A 
preacher of righteousness." ^ They insisted 
upon the union of morality with religion ; in 
fact, that religion without morality is simply 
irreligion. They exalted the moral and spirit- 
ual above the ceremonial and dogmatic. With 
them orthodoxy belonged to life rather than 
to creed. All the prophets from Samuel on- 
ward unite with him in saying that " to obey 
is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than 
the fat of rams." The meaningless and in- 
sincere offering of sacrifices and observance 
of ceremonial rites diso:usted their rio-hteous 
souls. As a contrast to religious formalism, 
Micah sums up the whole duty of man : 
"What doth the Lord require of thee but 

1 2 Pet. ii. 5. 



138 



SPEAKING FOR GOD. 



to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God?" The Scriptures may 
be searched in vain to find a condemnation 
of religious opinions or beliefs honestly held. 
Righteousness of life is God's test of char- 
acter. Isaiah's exhortation is : *' Put away the 
evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; 
cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judg- 
ment ; relieve the oppressed ; judge the father- 
less ; plead for the widow." Amos had just 
repeated the same strain : ^' Hate the evil and 
love the good, and establish judgment in the 
gate." The unknown prophet of the exile 
speaks in like manner, contrasting the false 
ceremonial fast with the true : ^' Is not this 
the fast that I have chosen } to loose the 
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy bur- 
dens, and to let the oppressed go free, and 
that ye break every yoke } Is it not to deal 
thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring 
the poor that are cast out to thy house? 
when thou seest the naked, that thou cover 
him ; and that thou hide not thyself from 
thine own flesh?" Such is everywhere the 



\ 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 39 

strain of Old Testament prophecy ; and the 
prophets of the New Testament begin their 
message with ; " Repent, for the kingdom of 
God is at hand." The righteousness which is 
of God through faith does not make void, but 
establishes, the moral law. The uniform teach- 
ing of all inspired men is that the object of 
true religion is to make bad men good and 
good men better. All doctrines must be put 
to this test. All trees must be judged by 
their fruit. All churches and systems of be- 
lief must be overthrown that do not make 
for righteousness, and that faith which pro- 
duces the noblest type of moral character 
will be the dominant one. 

It may be needful to indicate here the rela- 
tion of morality to religion. The two are in- 
separably joined in thought, however divorced 
in practice. A distinguished writer has said 
that *^ Religion contains the ideal ground of 
morality, and morality the real manifestation 
of religion." ^ If this be true, they are related 

1 Pfleiderer's *^ Philosophy and Development of Religion," 
vol. i., p. 66. Cf. Max MUller's definition, " Religion con- 



I40 SPEAKING FOR GOD 

as cause and effect, and so neither one can 
exist without the other. Where they are 
apparently dissociated, the religion and the 
morality are superficial and false. What is 
religion? Objectively it may be defined as a 
mode of worship. We speak, for example, of 
the Buddhistic, Mohammedan, or Catholic reli- 
gion. But with this definition we are not now 
concerned. Religion must first exist in the 
soul before it can find any outward expres- 
sion. Where is its seat t In thought, feeling, 
will, conscience 1 Philosophers have con- 
tended for each ; and it has been the habit of 
theologians for a century at least to show that 
each philosopher had only a portion of the 
truth, and that religion has to do with every 
function of man's spiritual being. His intel- 
lect must grasp certain truth ; his emotions 
must respond to it ; his will must put it into 
practice under the sanctions of conscience. 
Loving obedience to known truth is practical 

sists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations 
as are able to influence the moral character of man." — *' Nat- 
ural Religion," p. i88. 



I 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. I4I 

religion. The basal truth of religion is con- 
cerning God. When he is rightly conceived, a 
true religion is possible. Some one has well 
defined religion as *' faith in the reality of 
God, with a state of mind and mode of life in 
accordance with that faith.'' The elements of 
religion, then, are thought, feeling, and will, 
harmoniously in action, as related to God. The 
prophets seem intuitively to have grasped this 
truth, and sought to reveal more and more 
clearly the only true God, and to get men to 
act in harmony with the conception. The 
greatest Prophet of all, after he had revealed 
the Father, left to the world a pregnant sum- 
mary of religious faith, *^ Believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me." 

What, now, is practical morality or right- 
eousness of life 1 Admitting the existence of a 
Creator who is infinitely wise, holy, and good, 
the highest morality will consist in finding out 
the will of that Being, and lovingly doing it. 
Denying the existence of such a Being, there 
is no standard of moral law to which appeal 
can be made, and morality becomes mere utili- 



142 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

tarianism. In practice a morality that leaves 
God out of account never has had any firm 
basis. Its outcome has been selfishness and 
vice more or less gilded. The first chapter of 
Romans shows the result in practical life of 
those who did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge. The prevalent immorality of Eng- 
land two centuries ago, of France during the 
last century, and of Italy to-day, is due to in- 
difference to anything more than outward 
religious forms, and to the claims of God upon 
the individual and the nation. 

The righteous man or true moralist is, then, 
he who seeks to find out the "• God-willed 
moral order of the world," and to get that will 
realized in himself and in others. It cannot 
be separated from religion. If morality at- 
tempts a separation, it soon falls into Phari- 
seeism or selfish indifference. If religion 
separates herself from morality, she becomes 
hypocritical and formal. A religious faith 
lies back of all true morality, and a life of 
righteousness is the outcome of all true reli- 
gion. Every one who fears God and works 
righteousness is accepted of him. 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 43 

Possibly the opposition between morality 
and religion that exists in the minds of some 
arises from an incorrect definition of religion. 
It has been thought of as consisting in forms 
and dogmas, rather than in every-day right- 
eousness of life. The church has emphasized 
doctrinal rather than ethical creeds. The Ser- 
mon on the Mount is here in strange con- 
trast with the Nicene, Tridentine, and other 
confessions of faith. That sermon has been 
called by a modern prophet ^ the constitution 
of the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus came 
to set up on earth. It is ethical throughout. 
It requires assent to nothing that is not com- 
monly believed by all honest, thoughtful men. 
It assumes the existence of God as Judge of 
moral action, and universal accountability to 
him, — truths revealed in conscience. It is 
based upon the two great principles of loving 
God with all the heart, and consequently of lov- 
ing our fellow-man. It is an expansion of the 
moral preaching of Old Testament prophets. 
It would seem as though this were creed or 

1 Professor Herron, 



144 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

constitution enough for any church; yet three 
hundred years later the Nicene Creed, com- 
posed of a lot of metaphysical abstractions, is 
forced upon unwilling members of Christ's 
church. There is scarcely an ethical proposi- 
tion in the creed. Orthodoxy of belief con- 
tinued to be the test of Christian discipleship, 
finding its maximum expression in the decrees 
of the Council of Trent, abstruse and almost 
interminable dogmas, to which every one must 
assent on pain of eternal damnation. Protes- 
tantism has never fully released herself from 
such mediaeval shackles, though creeds are 
growing small by degrees and beautifully less. 
Wesley's General Rules are much more read 
and better understood than his proposed Arti- 
cles of Faith. The latter could be dispensed 
with far better than the former. It is better 
still, to go back to the moral teachings of Jesus. 
The aim of the modern prophet must be, 
not so much to get people to accept a creed 
or unite with a denomination, as to forsake 
their sins, and serve the living God. A dis- 
proportionate emphasis has been given to faith 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER, 1 45 

without works. The conditions of pardon are 
constantly set forth in the pulpit, such is the 
desire to number converts and have revivals, 
and too little is said upon the necessity of 
righteous living. Or the way to become holy 
is pointed out without sufficiently indicating 
how to live holily. Hence salvation from pen- 
alty is more thought of than salvation from 
sin. A life of sin and orthodox belief, crowned 
with momentary repentance, is thought by 
many to be a sufficient preparation for a bliss- 
ful eternity with a holy God. There is need 
of magnifying in the pulpit and in the theo- 
logical school the neglected study of moral 
theology or Christian ethics. The ethical in- 
struction of the church has been left too 
much to the individual conscience, perverted, 
it may be, by erroneous interpretations of 
Scripture. A general intention to do right is 
not sufficient for the moral guidance of babes 
in Christ. The application of moral princi- 
ples to the minutiae of every-day life has, 
doubtless, been carried too far in the Roman 
Catholic Church, till, in fact, casuistry has been 



146 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

well defined as '' the art of quibbling with 
God/' Protestantism may have leaned to the 
other extreme, and, in advocating the right of 
private judgment, may have left her unedu- 
cated adherents without sufficient moral in- 
struction. At least the great principles of 
righteousness inculcated by the Head of the 
church ought to be definitely expounded, and 
applied to social, industrial, commercial, and po- 
litical life. After baptism comes the preach- 
er's greater work of teaching converts '^to 
observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you.'' ^ 

The standard of righteousness has not al- 
ways been elevated to suit the progress of 
ethical science. Hence flagrant iniquities 
have been justified by appeal to supposed 
teachings of God in ancient times. The 
advocates of slavery and of abolition, of 
moderate drinking and of total abstinence, 
of war and of peace, of polygamy and of 
monogamy, have based their arguments upon 
misinterpretations of conflicting ethical be- 

1 Matt, xxviii. 20. 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. I47 

liefs held three thousand years ago and more. 
Would it not be well to inquire, what must 
we conclude from the history of the past and 
the demands of the present to be now holy 
and just and good? Must we prove that 
total abstinence is taught in the Bible, or 
that Jesus never drank fermented wine, be- 
fore we can advocate the modern temper- 
ance movement? Shall our desire to justify 
everything that is written in the book of 
the wars of the Lord hinder us from de- 
nouncing war as a barbarity ? Shall we 
cling to the low ethical standards of antiq- 
uity, forgetting that God is still alive, and 
has been teaching the world something new 
in moral and social science during the last 
two thousand years? 

Few dare in the face of custom and moneyed 
power to cry aloud, spare not, and show the 
people their sins. It is not popular. There 
is preaching enough, perhaps, against sin in 
the abstract, or against concrete sins not 
found in the congregation ; but how many 
are ready to go to the rich and powerful, as 



148 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

Nathan went to David, and say, ^'Thou art 
the man " ? Because of the prophet's negli- 
gence or cowardice the church drifts into 
conformity with the world, and formalism 
takes the place of spiritual life. The times 
demand more preachers of the old prophetic 
spirit, burning with righteous indignation 
against selfishness, meanness, and bigotry, 
who dare to rebuke the pitiless manner in 
which capitalists are oppressing the poor, who 
will champion the cause of the weak and 
suffering, who will cry out against the social 
evil that is rampant throughout the land, and 
growing worse every year through the si- 
lence of the clergy enforced by false deli- 
cacy, who will denounce corrupt qualities, 
whether national or ecclesiastical, in short, 
who will reason of righteousness, temper- 
ance, and a judgment to come. Such were 
the themes of the Hebrew prophets. The 
clergy should lead the van in all moral 
reforms, and by their influence shape the 
policy of municipal. State, and national gov- 
ernments in all that pertains to righteous- 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 49 

ness. '^Keep religion out of politics,'* has 
been the cry of the demagogue seeking for 
office and spoils, and multitudes of inverte- 
brate Christians have thoughtlessly joined in 
the cry. On the contrary, the principal part 
of the mission of Hebrew prophets seems 
to have been to regulate politics, rebuke 
kings and governors, and denounce unholy 
national alliances. The prophets were the 
real statesmen of their times, and, though 
never summoned to court, often made their 
appearance in the capital unto the conster- 
nation of corrupt and short-sighted politicians. 
" Stick to your theme,'' they say ; ^* preach 
Christ, and let business and politics alone." 
But how should Christ be preached except as 
means to an end, as our wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification, and redemption } His 
righteousness must be, not imputed, but im- 
parted unto us through the transforming gaze 
of faith. The righteousness of the law must 
be fulfilled in us as well as in him. Holiness 
of character can reveal itself only in righteous 
conduct in all the duties and relations of life. 



ISO SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

It is just as necessary now, as ever, to guard 
against antinomianism, let-alone-ism, the per- 
verted doctrine of imputation, and all theories 
that release the professed Christian from the 
necessity of being holy in heart and life. 
Righteousness of character and conduct must 
ever be the aim of preaching, and a faith in 
Christ that does not make one Christlike must 
be rejected as spurious. 

The church itself needs reformation, always 
has needed it since apostolic days, always will 
need it till, as the bride of Christ, it is with- 
out spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. It 
needs reformation in doctrine, in government, 
in life. It can reform the world only as it 
reforms itself. Resistance to change, under 
the name of conservatism, has hindered its 
conquest of the world. Clinging to the tra- 
ditions of the past, in spite of the new light 
poured upon it, the result has always been big- 
otry, superstition, tyranny, persecution. The 
church must lead, or fall out of the race. 
When it ceases to be the light of the world, 
the light that is within it is changed into 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. I5I 

darkness, and how great is that darkness. 
The church cannot permit the world to do its 
thinking, and slowly force it to accept long 
proved but rejected propositions. It cannot 
safely allow hostile organizations to do its 
humanitarian work. It cannot afford to have 
the State develop a better, freer form of gov- 
ernment than its own. The church must 
ride upon the advance move of truth-seeking 
thought and beneficent activity. It can more 
safely tolerate what appears to be of doubtful 
nature and tendency, than to persecute what 
may be of God.^ It has more to fear from 
the ultra-conservative than from the progres- 
sive radical. The prophet who arises to show 
its cherished faults and neglected opportuni- 
ties must be welcomed as a divine messenger. 
Faith in its own infallibility, wherever located, 
means stagnation and death. The church, 
like its individual members, must continually 
examine itself, whether it be in the faith. 

One of the greatest prophets of this cen- 
tury, Frederick W. Robertson, speaks out so 
1 Acts V. 38, 39. 



152 SPEAKING FOR GOD, 

boldly and truly at this point, that it is well 
to quote him at length : — 

** Two results come from all claims to infallibility 
and all prohibition of inquiry. They make bigots of 
the feeble-minded who cannot think, — cowardly bigots, 
who, at the bidding of their priests or ministers, swell 
the ferocious cry which forces a government, or a judge, 
or a bishop to persecute some opinion which they fear 
and hate, — turning private opinions into civil crime ; 
and they make sceptics of the acute intellects which, 
like Pilate, see through their fallacies, and, like Pilate, 
too, dare not publish their misgivings. 

*'And it matters not in what form that claim to in- 
fallibility is made ; whether in the clear, consistent way 
in which Rome asserts it, or whether in the inconsistent 
way in which Churchmen make it for their church, or 
religious bodies for their favorite opinions ; wherever 
penalties attach to a conscientious conviction, be they 
the penalties of the rack and flame, or the penalties of 
being suspected and avoided and slandered, and the 
slur of heresy affixed to the name, till all men count 
him dangerous lest they, too, should be put out of the 
synagogue, — and let every man who is engaged in per- 
secuting any opinion ponder it : these two things must 
follow, — you make fanatics, and you make sceptics ; 
believers you cannot make. 

*' Therefore do we stand by the central protest and 
truth of Protestantism. There is infallibility nowhere 
on this earth : not in Rome ; not in councils or con- 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 53 

ventions ; not in the Church of England ; not in priests ; 
not in ourselves. The soul is thrown in the grandeur 
of a sublime solitariness on God. Woe to the spirit 
that stifles its convictions ^Yhen priests threaten, and 
the mob which they have maddened cries heresy, and 
insinuates disloyalty : * Thou art not Caesar's friend.' " ^ 

'* The good is a great enemy to the best," 
says an old Greek proverb. Sloth says, '^ The 
old is good enough." Ignorance assents. 
When reality has drawn near to an old ideal, 
few like to have it elevated, and still labo- 
riously climb upward toward it. Yet this must 
be done in order to progress, yea, in order 
to have continued existence. He who would 
seize the standard and- bear it upward is 
pushed aside as an innovator and destroyer. 
The old ideal for which the fathers toiled, suf- 
fered, and died is too sacred to be disturbed. 
It has served well the past. Its defenders do 
not see the changed circumstances and con- 
ditions, and hence argue that it will do for 
all coming time. And until their eyes are 
opened they will and should conscientiously 

1 Sermon on the Scepticism of Pilate. 



154 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

oppose all change. It is the conscientious 
laggard that stops the march of progress. 
The reverent student of antiquity is the prin- 
cipal opposer of new ideas. Alas ! the eyes of 
the blind can no longer be opened by mir- 
acle, and so the prophet has to speak to hos- 
tile hearers for a long, long while. Who hath 
believed his report? It is a necessity that he 
should suffer persecution and often death, and 
the bitterest portion of his cup is that he 
suffers at the hands of good men. No wonder 
that the prophetic order sometimes appears to 
have died out. 

It is the duty of one who has moral con- 
victions to speak out. He should not be 
deterred by the thought that he may have 
occasion to change his mind. The prophets 
of old sometimes modified their prophecies. 
A true moral reformer will be open to further 
conviction, welcoming light from all sources. 
If he wait to study each question that arises 
out to an absolute certainty, he will rarely 
or never speak. The world needs men of 
present conviction and courage, not of fossil- 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 55 

ized opinion. The basis of moral conviction 
is devotion to truth and righteousness, and 
these will be the same through changing cir- 
cumstances and advancing study. Speak, 
then, but also listen. Speak, or the message 
will be withdrawn. Speak your convictions, 
or you will cease to have any. Speak with all 
the intensity of your soul, but keep on ques- 
tioning and studying every controverted posi- 
tion. Let no conservatism despise thy youth, 
thy ignorance, thy station. The present cold 
and sinful world needs heat quite as much as 
light, needs your intense conviction perhaps 
more than your philosophical conclusion. The 
man who never has occasion to say, *' I was 
mistaken," has been a silent partner in the 
great business of reforming and saving the 
world. If he has not the courage and honesty 
sometimes to say it, there will be no more open 
vision for him. Judicial blindness has fallen 
upon him. 

" Dangerous doctrine ! " This is the last 
protest of mere expediency. Yes, truth is 
dangerous stuff to handle. It is like electri- 



IS6 SPEAKING FOR GOD. 

city — it won't do to trifle with it. It is dan^ 
gerous, however, only when misused, when its 
laws are unknown or unobserved. The most 
important truths seem most dangerous, be- 
cause they lie so near to the borderland of 
error. Shall they, therefore, be hidden out 
of sight, or handed over to the enemy ? Is the 
doctrine true ? If so, blaze it abroad. No es- 
oteric doctrine rightly belongs to Christianity. 
The immediate consequences of freedom may 
be license. Shall slavery, therefore, be perpet- 
uated } Truth in its first conflict with error 
means pain and death. Its end is victory, 
peace, beneficence. The prophet and reformer 
will, likely enough, be stoned or sawn asunder. 
Well, that is infinitely better than to sup- 
press his convictions. The truth seems to be 
most dangerous to those who first utter it ; 
the danger, however, is not in the truth, but in 
opposition to it. Either let dynamite alone, 
or use it lawfully. 

Poets, prophets, and reformers are the seers, 
the progressives, the radicals, if this last term 
suits better. They have something of that 



THE PROPHET AS MORAL REFORMER. 1 57 

spiritual insight which furnishes the short-cut 
to moral truth. So Whittier, who was poet, 
prophet, and reformer, describes the conster- 
nation of the Church, of Art, of meek Rev- 
erence, of gray-bearded Use, and of young 
Romance, over the ruins wrought by the Re- 
former. His concluding words are full of 
truth and hope : — 

** I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, — 
The Waster seemed the Builder too; 
Upspringing from the ruined Old 
I saw the New. 

'Twas but the ruin of the bad, — 

The wasting of the wrong and ill ; 
Whate'er of good the old time had 
Was living still. 



Take heart ! — the Waster builds again 

A charmed life old Goodness hath ; 
The tares may perish, — but the grain 
Is not for death. 



God works in all things ; all obey 

His first propulsion from the night: 
Wake thou and watch! — the world is gray 
With morning light." 



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